Pretreatment clinical stage predicts locoregional recurrence in patients with esophageal cancer who achieved a complete clinical response to chemoradiotherapy.

Objective: Definitive chemoradiotherapy (dCRT) represents a curative nonsurgical treatment option for patients with esophageal cancer. However, tumor recurrence is common after dCRT, even when clinical complete response (cCR) is achieved. Here, we investigated the timing, patterns, and risk factors for recurrence in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) who achieved cCR following dCRT.

A Pathological Study of Residual Cancer in the Esophageal Wall Following Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy: Focus on Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients with False Negative Preoperative Endoscopic Biopsies.

Background: Endoscopic biopsy examinations after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) are of limited value in patients with esophageal cancer due to the high rates of false negative (FN) findings. We sought to investigate the anatomical locations of residual tumors in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients with FN endoscopic biopsies with the ultimate goal of improving their clinical management.

Methods: ESCC patients with residual cancers after nCRT which were not identified by preoperative endoscopic biopsy were deemed eligible.