Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy Associated with Improved Overall Survival in Resected Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma after Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy Era

Wing Keen Yap*, Ming Chieh Shih, Yu Chen Chang, Chia Hsin Lin, Shih Ming Huang, Tsung You Tsai, Ching Fu Chang, Chih Chung Hsu, Chen Kan Tseng, Miao Fen Chen, Din Li Tsan, Chi Ting Liau, Ming Mo Hou, Yin Kai Chao, Chien Hung Chiu, Tsung Min Hung*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: The prognosis of patients with resected esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is particularly poor in those who were staged as ypT3/T4 and/or ypN+. This study investigated whether adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was associated with improved clinical outcomes in these patients. Methods: we identified patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma who were staged as ypT3/T4 and/or ypN+ after being treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by esophagectomy between the years 2013 and 2019. Patients were divided into two groups based on whether they received adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression modeling were performed for survival analyses and multivariable analysis, respectively. Results: 76 eligible patients were included in the analyses. The median follow-up for the study cohort was 43.4 months. On Kaplan-Meier analyses of the overall population, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was associated with significantly improved median overall survival (31.7 months vs. 16.3 months, p = 0.036). On Kaplan-Meier analyses of the 35 matched pairs generated by propensity score matching, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was associated with significantly longer median overall survival (31.7 months vs. 14.3 months; p = 0.004) and median recurrence-free survival (18.9 months vs. 11.7 months; p = 0.020). In multivariable analysis, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was independently associated with a 60% reduction in mortality (p = 0.003) and a 48% reduction in risk of recurrence (p = 0.035) after adjusting for putative confounders. In addition, microscopic positive resection margin and Mandard tumor regression grade 3–4 were independently associated with increased mortality and risk of recurrence. While a greater number of lymph nodes dissected was independently associated with significantly improved overall survival, the number of positive lymph nodes was independently associated with significantly worse overall survival and a trend (p = 0.058) towards worse recurrence-free survival. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that adjuvant CRT was independently associated with a significantly improved survival and lower risk of recurrence than observation in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients staged as ypT3 and/or ypN+ after receiving neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and radical surgery. The results of this study have implications for the design of future clinical trials and may improve treatment outcomes of patients in this setting who cannot afford or are without access to adjuvant nivolumab.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2989
JournalBiomedicines
Volume10
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 11 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.

Keywords

  • IMRT
  • VMAT
  • adjuvant chemoradiotherapy
  • esophageal cancer
  • neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy
  • post-neoadjuvant pathologic stage
  • squamous cell carcinoma
  • trimodality therapy
  • ypN+
  • ypT3

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