Perineural invasion predicts for locoregional failure in patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

AIM: The prognostic significance of perineural invasion (PNI) in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is unclear. We examined the association of PNI with clinical outcomes in patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) and surgery.

METHODS

We performed a single institutional retrospective study. We evaluated the association of PNI with locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), distant metastasis-free survival, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival using log-rank and Cox proportional hazard modelling.

RESULTS

29 out of 73 patients (40%) had PNI at the time of surgery. The median follow-up was 20.1 months. The median DFS was 18.4 months for patients with PNI vs 41.3 months for patients without PNI (p<0.05). The median LRFS was 23.3 months for patients with PNI and median not reached for patients without PNI (p<0.01). In a multivariate model including age and pathological variables, PNI remained a significant independent predictor of LRFS (HR 0.20, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.60; p=0.004).

CONCLUSIONS

For patients with EAC treated with nCRT, PNI found at the time of surgery is significantly associated with worse LRFS. Our data support attempts to validate this finding and perhaps testing the role of adjuvant therapy in patients with PNI.