Multimodal Treatment Strategy for Clinical T3 Thoracic Esophageal Cancer

Purpose Our goal was to create a multimodal treatment strategy for patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer (EC). Methods A retrospective review identified a total of 193 patients with clinical T3 thoracic EC were categorized into 3 groups: 81 who had surgery only (group I); 102 who had planned neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACRT; group II); and 10 who had salvage esophagectomy after definitive chemoradiotherapy (dCRT; group III). Results Postoperative complications developed in 27, 45, and 80 % of patients in group I, group II, and group III, respectively. NACRT and dCRT were independent risk factors associated with postoperative complications; the odds ratios for group II and group III, compared with group I, were 2.1 and 8.8, respectively. The respective mortality rates were 4, 2, and 20 % (group I vs. group III, p