Definitive Chemoradiation for Oesophageal Cancer — a Standard of Care in Patients with Non-metastatic Oesophageal Cancer

AIMS: A retrospective analysis was carried out of 291 cases of oesophageal cancer treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy (dCRT) at a single UK cancer centre between 1995 and 2009. Our protocol consisted of two cycles of neoadjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy followed by two further cycles given concurrently with 50Gy of external beam radiotherapy delivered in 25 fractions over 5 weeks. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Demographic, patient and outcome data were recorded prospectively through an electronic health record and retrospectively analysed, using appropriate statistical tools. RESULTS: Data on 266 patients were available for analysis. The median age was 66.6 years, 53% were adenocarcinomas. dCRT was used instead of surgery because of age/co-morbidity in 44% and disease extent in 39%. Ninety-three per cent of patients completed treatment according to protocol. Grade 3 and 4 toxicities were seen in 42 and 7%, respectively. Median survival was 20.6 months; 2, 3 and 5 year survival rates were 43.6, 32.9 and 19.5%, respectively. Advanced disease was associated with a worse outcome. Shorter disease length was associated with a better median survival, but some patients with disease >10cm had long-term disease control. The effect of other patient- and disease-related factors was also analysed. CONCLUSION: We present data showing that dCRT is well tolerated and should be considered as an alternative to surgery for all patients with locally advanced oesophageal cancer, not only those with co-morbidity. Furthermore, the benefits of dCRT are not confined to carcinomas with squamous histology.