IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR ESOPHAGEAL CANCER - A RANDOMIZED TRIAL IN COMBINATION WITH RADIOTHERAPY AND RADIOCHEMOTHERAPY

We investigated the effect of multimodal therapy in 187 patients with esophageal cancer. All patients were followed up over a period of 5 ye ars. Among the 187 patients, 174 (93.1%) eligible patients with biopsy -proved esophageal squamous cell carcinoma underwent esophagectomy and were randomly assigned to receive radiotherapy (RT) with or without p rotein-bound polysaccharide (PSK), or RT plus chemotherapy (CT) with o r without PSK. The 5-year survival rates of patients with RT, RT + PSK , RT + CT and RT + CT + PSK were 40.0%, 42.3%, 29.1% and 37.2%, respec tively. There was a tendency for longer survival on PSK, but statistic al significance was not reached (RT + CT group versus RT + CT + PSK gr oup: log-rank and generalized Wilcoxon tests, P = .1930, P = .1034). H owever, Cox multivariate regression analysis indicated that postoperat ive therapy with or without PSK was the most significant prognostic fa ctor for patients receiving RT + CT and for the eligible patients, The se results indicate that PSK may have a beneficial effect on esophagea l carcinoma when given in combination with CT + RT.