The Impact of Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy on Perioperative Outcomes, Tumor Pathology, and Survival in Clinical Stage II and III Esophageal Cancer

Background The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NCR) on perioperative outcomes, tumor pathology, and survival following surgical resection of clinical stage II and III esophageal cancer. Methods Patients undergoing esophagectomy for clinical stage II and III cancer were divided into two groups: those who received NCR and those who underwent primary surgery (1991–2011). Results A total of 173 (50.9 %) of 340 stage II/III patients received NCR, 108 (31.8 %) patients underwent primary surgery, and 59 (17.4 %) underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery. Patients who received NCR were younger but had a similar Charlson comorbidity index and incidence of adenocarcinoma. There were no differences between groups in the incidence of complications, in-hospital mortality, and ICU stay, but patients who received NCR demonstrated a reduced length of hospital stay. NCR was associated with a reduced the incidence of positive pathological lymph node status and positive resection margin (3.1 vs. 21.1 %) in stage III esophageal cancer. No overall survival benefit was seen with use of NCR, although a nonsignificant improvement in survival of 22 months ( p = 0.06) was noted in patients with adenocarcinoma. Negative resection margin was associated with an improved survival in both stage II and III patients. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of planning operations to optimize the opportunity to provide negative surgical resection margins and to identify patients not responding to NCR to allow them to proceed directly to surgery. Additional assessment of the effect of NCR on patients with adenocarcinoma is warranted.