Details of recurrence sites after elective nodal irradiation (ENI) using 3D-conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) combined with chemotherapy for thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma – A retrospective analysis

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy with elective lymph node irradiation for esophageal cancer: a systemic review and pooled analysis of the literature

“…Yamashita et al gave us an opportunity to deeply investigate the failure patterns for thoracic ESCC (29, 53, and 44 for upper, middle, and lower thoracic esophagus, respectively) and they concluded that ENI was effective for preventing regional nodal failure, and upper thoracic EC had significantly more local recurrences (34%) than the middle (9%) or lower (11%) thoracic sites. 11 This may partially explain why ENI had not achieved a statistical significant advantage for cervical and upper thoracic cancers.…”

“…Table 1 showed the basic characteristics of patients included in this review following the chronological order. [4][5][6][7][11][12][13][14][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] It should be pointed out that a total of 4 reports were interrelated with RTOG 85-01. To avoid repeated computation, we consolidated and marked these reports as RTOG 85-01.…”

“…9,10 In accordance with the concept of three-field lymph node dissection in curative surgery, CCRT with ENI may improve local-regional control and thus translate into an OS benefit in a series of single-arm studies. [11][12][13][14] To date, only one small sample sized prospective clinical trial had been focused on the value of ENI for cervical and upper-thoracic EC with late course accelerated hyperfractionated radiation (LCAHRT) which was uncommon in daily practice. Their results suggested that ENI was no better than involved-field irradiation (IFI) in acute toxicity and lymph node failure.…”

Mapping of failures after radiochemotherapy in patients with non-metastatic esophageal cancer: A posteriori analysis of the dose distribution in the sites of loco-regional relapse

“…As the differences in local control and survival were not significant, it was difficult to conclude that dose escalation was beneficial. In their retrospective study, Yamashita et al evaluated the patterns of recurrence of ENI in CRT for 126 patients with thoracic esophageal cancer [19]. All patients received ENI.…”

Atlas of the thoracic lymph nodal delineation and recommendations for lymph nodal CTV of esophageal squamous cell cancer in radiation therapy from China

“…The delineation of radiotherapeutic nodal clinical target volume (CTVn) for patients with thoracic ESCC remains controversial. But most of radiation oncologists of East Asia agree that elective nodal radiation (ENI) including high-risk lymph nodal regions, should be performed for ESCC patients [4][5][6][7][8].…”