Combined Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy Compared with Radiotherapy Alone in Patients with Cancer of the Esophagus

PROGRESS has been slow in the treatment of patients with esophageal cancer, which accounts for 1.8 percent of cancer deaths in the United States and affects more than 10,000 patients annually. The results of surgery and radiation therapy have been poor, the median survival being less than 10 months and the survival rate at 5 years being only 10 percent. 1 2 3 Since some patients with esophageal carcinoma respond to single-agent or combination chemotherapy and similar chemotherapy has been combined effectively with radiation therapy to treat patients with carcinomas of the anal canal, the combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy has been adapted . . .