Radiotherapy progress in elderly patients with unresectable esophageal carcinoma

As the fourth leading cause of cancer death for years, esophageal carcinoma yields a high morbidity in China. In an aging society, the quantity of elderly patients with esophageal carcinoma is ever increasing. However, elderly patients have been excluded in most studies due to more comorbidities, lower performance status grade, worse therapeutic tolerance and other clinical features. Although clinical prognosis of esophageal carcinoma patients has been improved in the past decades, the clinical efficacy in the treatment of esophageal carcinoma in elderly patients is still unsatisfactory. Current options should be combined with novel therapeutic strategies to enhance the clinical efficacy. In this article, the clinical efficacy and adverse events of radiotherapy, radiochemotherapy, targeted therapy or immunotherapy in treating elderly patients with unresectable esophageal carcinoma were retrospectively analyzed. (authors)