Effects of preoperative radiotherapy for patients with esophageal cancer

Preoperative radiotherapy has been applied to patients suffering from esophageal cancer with definite invasion to the adventitia. Patients who received preoperative radiotherapy showed higher cummulative survival rates than those who did not receive. Within the field of irradiation the invasion of esophageal cancer into the lymphatic and blood vessels was less frequent in the preoperative radiotherapy group than in the non-radiotherapy group. In contrast, a vascular invasion in the outer field of irradiation was observed in a few patients with poor prognosis. It was concluded that radiotherapy prior to to the operation was considered to be effective in the esophageal cancer patients for the prevention of the vascular invasion within the field of irradiation. (author)