Concurrent chemotherapy (5-fluorouracil and cisplatin) and radiation therapy followed by surgery for T4 squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus

Background and Objectives: Since the prognosis of patients with T4 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the esophagus is extremely poor, an effective mult imodal treatment needs to be established. Methods: Forty-five patients with SCC of the esophagus at the T4 classifica tion of the disease but no hematogenous metastasis were treated with concur rent chemoradiation therapy followed by surgical resection. Twenty-eight pa tients were treated with a regimen (protocol A) of 5-fluorouracil 750 mg/m( 2) on days 1-5 and 22-26, and cisplatin 70 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 22. The re maining 17 patients were treated with a modified regimen (protocol B) of 5- fluorouracil 400 mg/m(2) and cisplatin 10 mg/m(2) on days 1-5, 8-12, 15-19, and 22-26. Radiation was delivered daily for 5 days/week for 4 weeks at th e rate of 2 Gy/day to a total dose of 40 Gy in both protocols. Results: A major clinical response was observed in 29 [3 complete response (CR) and 26 partial response (PR)] patients (64.4%). Twenty-eight patients (62.2%) underwent esophagectomy with no postoperative death. The median sur vival time of the resected patients (959 days) was significantly longer tha n that of the non-resected patients (178 days). Protocol B showed significa ntly higher pathologic effectiveness than protocol A. The pathologic CR rat e for the main tumors was 1 (6.3%) of 16 patients for protocol A and 7 (58. 3%) of 12 patients for protocol B. The pathologic CR rate for metastasized lymph nodes was 4/11 (36.4%) for protocol A and 5/5 (100%) for protocol B. Good histological response of the main tumors correlated well with long sur vival. The treatments were well tolerated except for one treatment-related death. Conclusions: Concurrent chemoradiation therapy followed by surgery is an ef fective and safe multimodal therapy for patients with primary inoperable T4 SCC of the esophagus. J. Surg. Oncol. 1999;70:25-32. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.