Ten-Year Survival and Recurrence Patterns After Three-Field Lymph Node Dissection for Squamous Cell and Adenocarcinoma of the Esophagus

The aim was to determine the prevalence of metastases to the cervical and recurrent laryngeal cervicothoracic (CT) nodes as well as survival and recurrence patterns after esophagectomy with three-field lymph node dissection (TFD) in patients with predominately adenocarcinoma (AC) of the esophagus. Although esophagectomy with TFD is commonly practiced in Japan and Southeast Asia for squamous cell cancer (SCC) of the esophagus, there are only a handful of reports about its' utilization and survival benefit in North American patients. This is a retrospective case series of patients who had an esophagectomy with TFD. The primary outcomes of interest were the prevalence of nodal metastases to the CT nodes as well as overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival. Secondary outcomes included time to recurrence, recurrence patterns, operative morbidity as well as 30 and 90-day mortality. Two hundred forty-two patients with esophageal cancer (AC: 67%) underwent esophagectomy with TFD. Metastases to the CT nodes were present in 56 patients (23%: AC 20% and SCC 30%). Positive CT nodes were present in 14% of pT1/T2 tumors and 30% of pT3 tumors. For the 56 patients with CT positive nodes, 5-year OS was 25% (AC:16%; SCC:39%). Fifteen of 56 (26.7%) patients with metastases to the CT nodes were alive and disease-free at a minimum of 5 years postoperatively. Ten-year OS was 43% for all patients with SCC and 28% for patients with AC. Metastases to the CT nodes are common in both SCC and AC of the esophagus and may be present in at least 14% of early lesions. Five-year survival is encouraging particularly for patients with esophageal SCC cancer.