Histological step sectioning of pelvic lymph nodes increases the number of identified lymph node metastases

Pathological examinations of lymph nodes (LN) in prostate cancer patients are handled differently at various institutions. The objective of this study is to provide means to improve the guidelines by examining the impact of step sectioning on LN status in patients with intermediate and high-risk prostate cancer. Two hundred ten patients who awaited curative indented therapy were included. We first performed a standard pathological examination of the LN, followed by an extended pathological examination of the patients who were LN negative in the standard examination. The extended pathological examination included a 100-μm-deep haematoxylin and eosin (HE) section followed by a slide stained with cytokeratin AE1/AE3 and then by four HE sections at 0.5-mm intervals.