Consolidation Chemotherapy Rather than Induction Chemotherapy Can Prolong the Survival Rate of Inoperable Esophageal Cancer Patients Who Received Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is regarded as the standard treatment for inoperable esophageal cancers (EC). It is still controversial whether consolidation chemotherapy (CCT) or induction chemotherapy (IC) is beneficial for the patients who received CRT. Therefore, we carried out a retrospective analysis at our institution. A total of 186 inoperable EC patients from 20 October 2017 to 7 June 2021 who have previously received CRT were included in our study. The patients were divided into IC + CRT (n = 52), CCRT (n = 64), and CRT + CCT (n = 70) groups according to whether they received induction chemotherapy, consolidation chemotherapy, or not. We used Kaplan−Meier statistics to analyze their 1-, 2-, and 3-year OS. The median follow-up time for the whole group was 14.15 months. The 1-, 2-, 3- year overall survival (OS) for the CCRT group were 72.2%, 52.5%, and 29.5%, and 50.9%, 37.5%, and 25% for the IC + CRT group (p > 0.05). For the CRT + CCT group,1-, 2-, and 3-year OS were 89.8%, 59.0%, and 42.5% (p < 0.05). Adverse reactions in the three groups were mainly graded 0−3. The difference between the three groups was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). For non-surgical EC patients who received CRT, CCT after CRT but not IC before CRT can improve 1-, 2-, and 3-year OS with a low incidence of associated severe adverse effects. As a result, the addition of consolidation chemotherapy to chemoradiotherapy has significant prognostic advantages for inoperable EC patients.