Effect of body mass index and obesity on lymph node harvest in colorectal cancer resections

Background: Body mass is generally perceived by surgeons as a factor increasing technical difficulty in most surgical procedures. This is a retrospective observational study on colorectal cancer resections considering obesity, to see how patient body mass index (BMI) affects lymph node harvest in colorectal cancer. Methods: This was a retrospective observational study between October 2021 and November 2023 at a district general hospital in England. Ethical approval was not sought as this was an observational anonymised study without any patient identifiable information. Data was collected consecutively from MDT lists and grouped by procedure and subgroups with BMI and node harvest was checked in each subgroup and group. Results: We had 171 patients and a statistically significant effect on node harvest was only seen in abdominoperineal resections with BMI over 30 Conclusions: Obesity did not influence lymph node harvest in colorectal resections other than in abdominoperineal resections in BMI over 30.