Combined Treatment Modalities in Esophageal Cancer: Should chemotherapy be included?

A Swedish Study of Chemoradiation in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Esophagus

“…However, concomitant radiotherapy and chemotherapy seem to increase response rates (13)(14)(15). Pathological complete response rates of up to 51% have been reported (17) as well as a correlation between complete responses after chemoradiation and survival (18,19).…”

1. Concepts of Multimodal Therapy in Locally Advanced Esophageal Carcinoma. Concerning: Schmücking M, Wendt TG: Multimodality therapy of nonmetastatic esophageal cancer. Onkologie 1998;21:476–473. 2. Authors‘ Reply

“…Up to this point, the statement of Fink et al [9] Being radiation oncologists, we do not think that in potentially completely resectable tumors surgery is the only mainstay of treatment outside of controlled trials. Radiation therapy is as effective as surgery, both being a potentially curative option, a statement that is published in textbooks of radiation oncology as well as in recent articles [2,[27][28][29][30][31]. Nevertheless, we admit that neither our statement nor the statement in the letter to the editor printed above is verified by randomized trials.…”

Multimodality Therapy of Nonmetastatic Esophageal Cancer

“…However, palliation and cure can be integrated into a management plan that can accomplish both objectives and compromise neither [4]. Definitive radiation therapy alone [5,7] or resection of the esophagus as a sole treatment [5][6][7][8] remains the mainstay of therapy for local and locoregional disease, and for patients with resectable diseases it is the standard of care outside of a clinical trial. It is effective as both a potentially curative and a palliative procedure.…”