Multimodality Treatment for Oesophageal Cancer Multimodale Therapie des Ösophaguskarzinoms

Abstract

Summary: Background: First-line treatment in early stages of oesophageal carcinoma is surgery. Radiotherapy is well accepted as palliative treatment of choice in advanced stages. As survival rates are poor for single modality approaches, a number of phase II and phase III studies have been performed to evaluate combined modality treatment protocols.Methods: Results from our institutions and the current literature are presented.Results: There is no statistically significant benefit in adjuvant therapy schemes. Preoperative combined chemoradiotherapy can lead to a complete remission rate between 16 % and 37 %, may decrease the rate of local recurrence and lead to an overall survival benefit especially when a microscopic tumour-free resection has been reached.Conclusions: New agents in combined modality treatment schedules are showing encouraging results. With regard to the still remaining poor prognosis for patients with oesophageal carcinoma, further trials are needed to evaluate the ideal operative technique and combined modality treatment.