Chemoradiotherapy: its effectiveness, toxicity, and perspective in the treatment of esophageal cancer.

Many modalities of treatment have been developed to improve the therapeutic results of esophageal cancer, but this disease remains one of the most difficult cancers to cure. Radiotherapy is one such attempt. It has attracted huge attention since the concept of chemoradiation was introduced because of the improved response. Regarding all other modes of treatment, chemoradiation has merits and demerits, and its precise position in the strategy of esophageal cancer treatment is still under debate. This paper reviews the accumulated knowledge on chemoradiotherapy for esophageal cancer, and stresses with discussing its future direction.