CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND POSTOPERATIVE OUTCOME IN JAPANESE AND CHINESE PATIENTS WITH THORACIC ESOPHAGEAL CANCER

We evaluated the clinicopathologic findings and surgical results of 14 0 patients with thoracic esophageal cancer treated at Shinshu Universi ty, Japan (Shinshu group), and compared them with those from 1164 pati ents treated at Hebei Medical College, China (Hebei group) to determin e if the two groups showed any differences. The Shinshu group had sign ificantly higher incidences of elderly patients (>70 gears of age), ma le patients, and tumors located at the loner esophagus (p < 0.01). In the Hebei group, although the depth of tumor invasion was more advance d, the incidence of nodal metastasis was significantly lower (p < 0.01 ). Operative death and postoperative complications were more frequent in the Shinshu group. Comparison of the postoperative survival curves revealed significantly longer survival of patients with pT(2) or pT(3) tumor in the Hebei group (p < 0.01), but there were no significant di fferences between the two groups when the lesions were classified by p TNM stage. This study demonstrated several differences between the pat ients in the two areas in regard to the clinicopathologic characterist ics of thoracic esophageal cancer. The most important characteristic o f the esophageal cancer in the Hebei group appears to be the low incid ence of nodal metastasis.