The pathologist should search for lymph nodes in the resection specimen and the number found should be audited. In patients with rectum cancer who are treated with curative intent, 6 or 8 nodes should normally be examined; if the median number is consistently below 8, the surgeon and the pathologist should discuss their techniques.
Patients with inadequately sampled nodes could be offered adjuvant chemotherapy.
All reporting of colorectal cancer specimens should contain gross description, histology type, differentiation by predominant area, margins (tumour involvement), metastatic spread, background abnormalities, staging.