With the continuous rise of the incidence and mortality of rectal cancer in China currently, various studies on the treatment and prognostic factors of rectal cancer are being conducted constantly. Pathological staging is of great significance no matter for the treatment or the prognosis of rectal cancer. At present, main pathological staging methods of rectal cancer are tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging and Duke staging. Staging results of tumors can serve as a tool to predict the prognosis of patients and determine postoperative treatment regimens. pN depends on the number of metastatic positive lymph nodes in patients. An increasing number of scholars have found that pN has limitations as per the prediction of the prognosis of rectal cancer, and that the significance of lymph node yield (LNY) and lymph node ratio (LNR) for staging and prognosis has gradually given rise to people’s attention. The increase in LNY can contribute to a more accurate pathological staging and prognosis improvement of patients, and it is mainly subject to the influence of neoadjuvant chemoradiation, tumor anatomy and such pathological characteristics as diameter size, invasion depth and patients’ own factors. Currently, clinical techniques aiming to increase LNY number include fat removal and lymphatic tracer, which, however, have their own limitations. LNR is an index combining the number of metastatic lymph nodes and LNY. Compared with pN, LNR is of greater significance for the prognosis of rectal cancer no matter the number of lymph nodes detected from surgical specimens suffices or not.