Retrospective analysis of patients with esophageal cancer treated with radiotherapy and/or chemoradiotherapy.

AIMS AND BACKGROUND: Esophageal cancer consists of 5% of all cancers. In Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, the rate was found to be 16%. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate effect of the localization and histologic type of tumor, stage of cancer and treatment modality, patient's sex, age and smoking status, Karnofsky performance score, and family history on survival.

METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: A total of 135 patients with locally advanced esophagus cancer were enrolled into the study. The factors (sex, age, Karnofsky performance status, localization, histology, stage of the disease, treatment modality) on survival were evaluated.

RESULTS: After the end of treatment, overall survival was 20 months, median survival period was 13 months. The survival rates at 1, 3 and 5 years were 51.3%, 20.1% and 13.4%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: For patients with esophageal cancer, age, Karnofsky performance score, stage, treatment modality applied, chemotherapy protocol, number of cures and general survival rate were found to be the prognostic factors related to survival (P <0.05) in univariate analysis. At the same time, the study showed that gender, smoking status, family history, localization of the tumor and histologic type had no effect on the survival. The best survival in patients with esophageal cancer which cannot be operated is obtained by 50.4 Gray radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy.