No abstract

e15606 Background: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is still a virulent disease diagnosed at late stage and remains a major cause of carcinoma mortality in China. The preoperative chemoradiotherapy had been applied to patients with esophageal carcinoma in an effort to reduce the relapse and improve survival. However, randomized controlled trails have shown conflicting results. Intergroup study 0116 demonstrated that postoperative chemoradiotherapy significantly improved overall survival in gastric carcinoma patients. The question remains whether postoperative chemoradiotherapy can improve overall survival in patients with esophageal carcinoma. Our planning study was to investigate the role of postoperative chemoradiotherapy in the multimodality treatment for locally advanced esophageal carcinoma. Methods: From October 2000 to October 2007, Fifty-two patients who underwent esophagectomy with stage II-III esophageal carcinoma were enrolled. All patients received 50Gy of postoperative radiotherapy over 25 fractions in 5 weeks. Two cycles of chemotherapy (Paclitaxel 135mg/m2 d1,cisplatin 20mg/m2d1–3) were administered concurrently on days 1–3 and days 29–31 of radiotherapy. Results: Of the total 52 patients, 28 (54%) developed grade 3 or 4 toxicity.At the time of analysis, 23 patients died. The median follow-up for surviving patients was 23.5 months. The median survival time was 37.2 months. Incidences of tumor recurrence were 53.8 % (28/52) of patients. As expected, distant metastasis was predominant. The 2-year local-regional control survival, distant metastasis-free survival and relapse-free survival were 60.01%, 71.38% and 42.01%, respectively. 1-year and 3-year overall survival were 82.19% and 47.13%, respectively. Conclusions: This novel postoperative chemoradiation regimen for treatment of patients with stage II-III esophageal cancer has a tolerable toxicity and promising 3-year overall survival. No significant financial relationships to disclose.