Preoperative concurrent chemoradiotherapy in patients with esophageal cancer - Preliminary surgical results

Purpose: Outcome of the treatment of esophageal cancer is still unsatisfactory and multimodality treatment is mandatory for improving results. In order to evaluate the response rate and survival of esophageal cancer, we reported a new strategy for the treatment of this disease. Method: From July 1993 to November 1995, thirty-two cases of esophageal cancer (stage III) underwent surgical resection after concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) using mainly cisplatinum and radiation up to 3000 CGY. Average age was 61 years old. All the patients were locally advanced stage esophageal cancer. Result: Relative good results were obtained as shown from the surgical findings. Eighteen patients (56%) showed complete response without evidence of gross and microscopic residual disease. The remain 14 patients showed partial response (tumor regression >50%) after concurrent chemoradiotherapy. All of the patients have an uneventful postoperative course with mean follow-up 11.2 months. Conclusions: These preliminary surgical results demonstrated that pre-operative concurrent chemoradiotherapy is clinically effective and showed promising results. Clinical Implication: On the basis of our results, we were now routinely using these combined therapeutic modality in the treatment of locally advanced esophageal cancer.