A clinical trial of radiotherapy with modified simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) technique against huge tumors was conducted. A 58-year-old male patient who had a huge pelvic tumor diagnosed as a rectal adenocarcinoma due to familial adenomatous polyposis was enrolled in this trial. The total dose of 77 Gy (equivalent dose in 2 Gy/fraction) and 64.5 Gy was delivered to the center of the tumor and the surrounding area respectively, and approximately 20% dose escalation was achieved with the modified SIB technique. The tumor with an initial maximum size of 15 cm disappeared 120 d after the start of the radiotherapy. Performance status of the patient improved from 4 to 0. Radiotherapy with modified SIB may be effective for patients with a huge tumor in terms of tumor shrinkage/disappearance, improvement of QOL, and prolongation of survival.

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We report a rare case of a 68-year-old male with metachronous pancreatic metastasis that was resected 2 years after salvage esophagectomy for local recurrence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Two years and 8 mo ago, he had undergone definitive chemoradiotherapy for the lower thoracic ESCC and achieved a complete response. Chemoradiotherapy used the protocol of the Japan Clinical Oncology Group trial 9906. Approximately 8 mo later, he developed a local recurrence of the ESCC and underwent thoracoscopic salvage esophagectomy followed by reconstruction with a conduit colon graft via a subcutaneous route. Recently, a tumor of the pancreatic body was found on routine follow-up computed tomography (CT). The tumor diameter was 15 mm on CT, and the maximum standardized uptake value of the lesion was 5.49 at 18F-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron-emission tomography, strongly suggesting pancreatic cancer. In addition, all tumor markers were within the reference intervals. Therefore, distal pancreatectomy was performed with the resultant histological diagnosis being confirmed as pancreatic metastasis of the ESCC. He was treated with adjuvant chemotherapy, and there has been no evidence of recurrence 9 mo after the surgery. Resection of pancreatic metastasis offers a good prognosis and should be considered for solitary ESCC metastasis.

Barrett's esophagus (BE) is a consequence of gastroesophageal reflux disease and is predisposed to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). EAC is an exemplar model of inflammation-associated cancer. Glucocorticoids suppress inflammation through glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and serum-and glucocorticoidinduced kinase-1 (Sgk1) expressions. Therefore, we immunolocalized GR and Sgk1 in EAC and the adjacent BE tissues and studied their association with clinical disease course in 87 patients with EAC who underwent surgical resection (N = 58) or endoscopic submucosal dissection (N = 29). Low GR and Sgk1 expressions in adjacent BE tissues were associated with adverse clinical outcomes (P = 0.0008 and 0.034, respectively). Patients with low Sgk1 expression in EAC cells exhibited worse overall survival (P = 0.0018). In multivariate Cox regression analysis, low GR expression in the adjacent nonmalignant BE tissues was significantly associated with worse overall survival (P = 0.023). The present study indicated that evaluation of GR and Sgk1 expressions in both the EAC cells and adjacent nonmalignant BE tissues could help to predict clinical outcomes following endoscopic and surgical treatments. In particular, the GR status in BE tissues adjacent to EAC was an independent prognostic factor. K E Y W O R D S Barrett's esophagus, clinical outcome, esophageal adenocarcinoma, glucocorticoid receptor, serum-and glucocorticoid-induced kinase-1

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