Trimodality therapy of esophagectomy plus neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy improves the survival of clinical stage II/III esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients

The prognosis of advanced esophageal cancer patients is poor. Trimodality therapy of surgical resection plus neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) has been developed to improve survival through locoregional control, leading to prevention of micrometastasis. We investigated whether or not neoadjuvant CRT led to survival benefits in TNM stage II/III esophageal cancer patients. We retrospectively reviewed 62 patients with stage II or III esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) treated with neoadjuvant CRT. All patients received esophagectomy 4-7 weeks after CRT consisting of 40 Gy irradiation and chemotherapy (5-FU, 500 mg/m2/day, days 1-5 and cisplatin, 10-20 mg/body, days 1-5). Clinical response and survival rates were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier methods, with P