Survival benefit of surgery in patients with clinical T4 esophageal cancer who achieved complete or partial response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy or radiotherapy

Locally Advanced Adenocarcinoma of the Esophagus: Is Esophagectomy Associated with Improved Overall Survival?

BACKGROUND

Esophagectomy in locally advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma is challenging and carries risk. The value of esophagectomy in locally advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma is not well-defined.

STUDY DESIGN

The National Cancer Database was used to identify patients with cT4 esophageal adenocarcinoma from 2004 to 2020. Multivariable regression was used to identify factors associated with use of esophagectomy. Cox modeling was used to identify factors associated with all-cause mortality. Patients undergoing esophagectomy were 1:1 propensity score-matched to patients treated nonsurgically. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare 5-year overall survival (OS).

RESULTS

A total of 3,703 patients met inclusion criteria. Of those, 541 (15%) underwent esophagectomy, and 3,162 (85%) did not. Age 65 years or less (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.69, 95% CI 1.33 to 2.14), White race (aOR 2.98, 95% CI 2.24 to 3.96), treatment in academic centers (aOR 1.64, 95% CI 1.33 to 2.02), private insurance (aOR 1.88, 95% CI 1.50 to 2.36), and tumors less than 6 cm (aOR 1.86, 95% CI 1.44 to 2.40) were associated with use of esophagectomy. Government of lack of insurance (hazard ratio [HR] 1.23, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.35), income <$46,000 (HR 1.11, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.20), treatment in nonacademic centers (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.25), Charlson-Deyo Comorbidity Index 1 or more (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.32), and tumors 6 cm or more (HR 1.20, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.32) were associated with risk of all-cause mortality. Esophagectomy (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.44 to 0.56) and systemic therapy (HR 0.40, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.43) were associated with decreased risk of all-cause mortality. Patients undergoing esophagectomy had higher rates of 5-year OS (27.4% vs 13.2%, p < 0.0001) and longer median OS (24.71 vs 10.09 months, p < 0.0001). Among cT4b patients, those who underwent esophagectomy had higher rates of 5-year OS (24.5% vs 12.3%, p < 0.0001) and longer median OS (25.53 vs 11.01 months, p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

In cT4 esophageal adenocarcinoma, esophagectomy is associated with improved rates of 5-year OS compared with nonsurgical treatment.

Multi-disciplinary management of esophageal carcinoma: Current practices and future directions

Esophageal cancer in one of the most malignant and hard-to-treat cancers. Esophageal squamous carcinoma (ESCC) is most common in Asian countries, whereas adenocarcinoma at the esophago-gastric junction (EGJ AC) is more prevalent in the Western countries. Due to differences in both genetic background and response to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, both histologic subtypes need different paradigms of management. Since the landmark CROSS study has demonstrated the superior survival benefit of tri-modality including neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy prior to esophagectomy, the tri-modality becomes the standard of care; however, it is suitable for a highly-selected patient. Tri-modality should be offered for every ESCC patient, if a patient is fit for surgery with adequate cardiopulmonary reserve, regardless of ages. Definitive chemoradiotherapy remains the best option for a patient who is not a surgical candidate or declines surgery. On the contrary, owing to doubtful benefits of radiotherapy with potentially more toxicities related to radiotherapy in EGJ AC, either neoadjuvant chemotherapy or peri-operative chemotherapy would be more preferable in an EGJ AC patient. In case of very locally advanced disease (cT4b), the proper management is more challenging. Even though, palliative care is the safe option, multi-modality therapy with curative intent like neoadjuvant chemotherapy with conversion surgery may be worthwhile; however, it should be suggested on case-by-case basis.

Treatment options for neoadjuvant strategies of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (Review)

Compared with postoperative adjuvant therapy, neoadjuvant therapy has more potential advantages, such as decreasing tumor stage, killing micrometastatic cells. Because of these advantages, neoadjuvant therapy is recommended for numerous types of tumor, such as breast, lung and rectal cancer. To determine the role of neoadjuvant therapy on overall survival and adverse for patients with resectable esophageal carcinoma. we summarized clinical studies on 7 types of neoadjuvant therapies in this review. Currently, patients with esophageal cancer (EC) in China mainly receive postoperative treatment with <30% of patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy. One reason for the limited use of neoadjuvant therapy in China is inaccurate staging based on imaging and neoadjuvant treatment may increase difficulties in surgery. After neoadjuvant therapy, there may be tissue edema, blurry surgical field of view and unclear tissue gaps, resulting in greater difficulty in surgical procedures. However, oncologists are interested in neoadjuvant treatment, especially neoadjuvant immunotherapy to treat EC. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most common neoadjuvant treatment regimen and increases the pathological complete response (pCR) and 5- and 10-year survival rates. Preoperative induction chemotherapy and sequential concurrent chemoradiotherapy are currently the most widely treatments used in clinical practice in China. However, this treatment strategy does not yield long-term survival. The pCR rate of neoadjuvant immunotherapy is greater than that of concurrent chemoradiotherapy but, to the best of our knowledge, no evidence of long-term survival benefit has been found in phase I and II clinical trials. Neoadjuvant treatment should be considered for patients with locally advanced ESCC.

Role of surgery in T4N0-3M0 esophageal cancer

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to investigate an unsettled issue that whether T4 esophageal cancer could benefit from surgery.

METHODS

Patients with T4N0-3M0 esophageal cancer from 2004 to 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were included in this study. Kaplan-Meier method, Cox proportional hazard regression, and propensity score matching (PSM) were used to compare overall survival (OS) between the surgery and no-surgery group.

RESULTS

A total of 1822 patients were analyzed. The multivariable Cox regression showed the HR (95% CI) for surgery vs. no surgery was 0.492 (0.427-0.567) (P < 0.001) in T4N0-3M0 cohort, 0.471 (0.354-0.627) (P < 0.001) in T4aN0-3M0 cohort, and 0.480 (0.335-0.689) (P < 0.001) in T4bN0-3M0 cohort. The HR (95% CI) for neoadjuvant therapy plus surgery vs. no surgery and surgery without neoadjuvant therapy vs. no surgery were 0.548 (0.461-0.650) (P < 0.001) and 0.464 (0.375-0.574) (P < 0.001), respectively. No significant OS difference was observed between neoadjuvant therapy plus surgery and surgery without neoadjuvant therapy: 0.966 (0.686-1.360) (P = 0.843). Subgroup analyses and PSM-adjusted analyses showed consistent results.

CONCLUSION

Surgery might bring OS improvement for T4N0-3M0 esophageal cancer patients, no matter in T4a disease or in T4b disease. Surgery with and without neoadjuvant therapy might both achieve better OS than no surgery.