OBJECTIVE: To investigate the lymph node metastasis and its risk factors in T1-2 staging invasive rectal carcinoma. METHODS: The data of 1116 patients with rectal cancer treated with total mesorectal excision (TME) technique from January 2000 to April 2009 was analyzed retrospectively. The clinicopathological factors analyzed included gender, age, primary symptom type, number of symptoms, duration of symptom, synchronous polyps, preoperative serum carcino-embryonic antigen level, preoperative serum CA19-9 level, the distance of tumor from the anal verge, tumor size, tumor morphological type, tumor circumferential extent, tumor differentiation and tumor T staging. Statistical analysis was performed by using Logistic regression analysis and Chi-square test. RESULTS: A total of 1116 patients were enrolled, and 358 cases (32.1%) were classified as with T1-2 staging tumor. Two cases (5.6%, 2/36) in patients with a T1 staging tumor were found with lymph node metastasis, and 75 cases (23.3%, 75/322) in patients with a T2 staging tumor, respectively. Compared with patients with T3-4 staging tumor, lymph node metastasis rate of the patients with T1-2 staging tumor was significantly lower [21.5% (77/358) vs. 51.6% (391/758), P < 0.05]. Only the tumor T staging was found as the independent risk factor for the lymph node metastasis in patients with T1-2 staging tumor on multivariate Logistic regression analysis (odds ratio: 5.162; 95%CI: 1.212 to 21.991; P = 0.026). CONCLUSIONS: A substantial proportion of T1-2 staging rectal cancers harbor metastatic lymph nodes and the clinicopathological features except for T staging fail to predict the lymph node metastasis. Further research is warranted to identify the risk factors and guide the clinical practice in patient with T1-2 staging tumor.