Purpose: The dismal outcome of esophageal cancer patients highlights the need for novel prognostic biomarkers, such as microRNAs (miRNA). Although recent studies have established the role of miRNAs in esophageal carcinoma, a comprehensive multicenter study investigating different histologic types, including squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma with or without Barrett's, is still lacking. Experimental Design: miRNA expression was measured in cancerous and adjacent noncancerous tissue pairs collected from 100 adenocarcinoma and 70 SCC patients enrolled at four clinical centers from the United States, Canada, and Japan. Microarray-based expression was measured in a subset of samples in two cohorts and was validated in all available samples. Results: In adenocarcinoma patients, miR-21, miR-223, miR-192, and miR-194 expression was elevated, whereas miR-203 expression was reduced in cancerous compared with noncancerous tissue. In SCC patients, we found elevated miR-21 and reduced miR-375 expression levels in cancerous compared with noncancerous tissue. When comparing cancerous tissue expression between adenocarcinoma and SCC patients, miR-194 and miR-375 were elevated in adenocarcinoma patients. Significantly, elevated miR-21 expression in noncancerous tissue of SCC patients and reduced levels of miR-375 in cancerous tissue of adenocarcinoma patients with Barrett's were strongly associated with worse prognosis. Associations with prognosis were independent of tumor stage or nodal status, cohort type, and chemoradiation therapy. Conclusions: Our multicenter-based results highlight miRNAs involved in major histologic types of esophageal carcinoma and uncover significant associations with prognosis. Elucidating miRNAs relevant to esophageal carcinogenesis is potentially clinically useful for developing prognostic biomarkers and identifying novel drug targets and therapies.

NLR and PLR are associated with tumor progression and are predictive of poorer survival in patients with esophageal cancer. These ratios may thus help to inform treatment decisions and predict treatment outcomes.

No abstract

Results of this meta-analysis on long-term as well as well-described short-term outcomes suggest that BTS could be a promising alternative strategy for MLBO patients.

No abstract

Although several limitations, such as inclusion of only retrospective studies with relatively small sample size and selection biases for surgical procedure, are involved, this meta-analysis suggested that APR has no survival benefit; however, APR confers better local control than LE. Given that local failures after LE could be managed by salvage surgery, minimizing morbidity and maximizing quality of life should be the focus in surgical treatment of ARMM.

No abstract

Purpose: Esophageal cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of cancer; highlighting the need to identify biomarkers for early detection and prognostic classification. Our recent studies have identified inflammatory gene and microRNA signatures derived from tumor and nontumor tissues as prognostic biomarkers of hepatocellular, lung, and colorectal adenocarcinoma. Here, we examine the relationship between expression of these inflammatory genes and micro RNA (miRNA) expression in esophageal adenocarcinoma and patient survival.Experimental Design: We measured the expression of 23 inflammation-associated genes in tumors and adjacent normal tissues from 93 patients (58 Barrett's and 35 Sporadic adenocarcinomas) by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. These data were used to build an inflammatory risk model, based on multivariate Cox regression, to predict survival in a training cohort (n ¼ 47). We then determined whether this model could predict survival in a cohort of 46 patients. Expression data for miRNA-375 were available for these patients and was combined with inflammatory gene expression.Results: IFN-g, IL-1a, IL-8, IL-21, IL-23, and proteoglycan expression in tumor and nontumor samples were each associated with poor prognosis based on Cox regression [(Z-score)>1.5] and therefore were used to generate an inflammatory risk score (IRS). Patients with a high IRS had poor prognosis compared with those with a low IRS in the training (P ¼ 0.002) and test (P ¼ 0.012) cohorts. This association was stronger in the group with Barrett's history. When combining with miRNA-375, the combined IRS/miR signature was an improved prognostic classifier than either one alone.Conclusion: Transcriptional profiling of inflammation-associated genes and miRNA expression in resected esophageal Barrett's-associated adenocarcinoma tissues may have clinical utility as predictors of prognosis. Clin Cancer Res; 16(23); 5824-34. Ó2010 AACR.