Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Clinical Stage II and III Thoracic Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma with Curative Esophagectomy

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a gastrointestinal carcinoma with a poor prognosis. To improve the survival of patients with this disease, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has been introduced. However, the survival benefits of NAC or the correlation between NAC and postoperative complications have not been well considered. In the present study, we retrospectively investigated the clinicopathological effectiveness of NAC in patients with clinical stage II and III thoracic ESCC. This retrospective study enrolled 63 patients with clinical stage II and III thoracic ESCC, who underwent resection of the thoracic esophagus and three-field lymph node dissection between January 2007 and December 2013. NAC with cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) was introduced in 38 patients. NAC did not correlate with the occurrence of postoperative complications. The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate of the 38 patients with NAC (41.6%) was similar to that for the 25 patients who did not receive NAC (38.1%; P = 0.784). However, we found that the DFS of 17 patients with histopathological Grade 2 and 3 tumors who received NAC (5-year DFS rate: 58.1%) was significantly higher than that of 21 patients with low histopathological grade tumors who received NAC (5-year DFS rate: 28.6%), or than that of the 25 patients who did not receive NAC (38.1%). Moreover, we found that the effectiveness of NAC assessed macroscopically did not correlate with the effectiveness of NAC assessed microscopically. These findings may indicate that preoperative estimation of NAC effectiveness is important in avoiding unnecessary adverse drug effects caused by NAC, and in prolonging the survival of patients with thoracic ESCC. Corresponding author.