Surgery and chemoradiation in the treatment of esophageal cancer

Although chemoradiation has been widely adapted to patients with all stages of esophageal cancer, its therapeutic effect is inconclusive. In our series, surgery was significantly superior to chemoradiation in patients' survival of clinical stage I and III. Chemoradiation has also brought the issue of making therapeutic strategy only based on the clinical diagnosis. Lymph node status was difficult to diagnose and led to many miss-diagnosis especially in the patients with clinical stage II in our series. To re-evaluate the therapeutic effect in all stages, to develop more reliable diagnostic modalities and criteria, and to combine chemoradiation with surgery according to patients' condition are future problems in esophageal cancer. (author)