Prognostic factors in the nonsurgical treatment of esophageal carcinoma with radiotherapy or radiochemotherapy: the importance of pretreatment hemoglobin levels.

Background: The current study was performed to evaluate prognostic factors for overall survival (OS), distant metastasis (DM), and local failure (LF) in patients with Stage II/III esophageal carcinoma.

Methods: The following potential prognostic factors were retrospectively investigated in 124 patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) alone or with radiochemotherapy: age, gender, performance status, tumor location, tumor length, histology, histologic grade, T classification, N classification, International Union Against Cancer stage, chemotherapy, RT dose, and pre-RT hemoglobin level.

Results: Using univariate analysis (Kaplan-Meier method), pre-RT hemoglobin level, RT dose, tumor length, chemotherapy, and performance status were significantly associated with OS.