OBJECTIVES

The goal of this study was to investigate the overall survival between open and thoracoscopic oesophagectomy in patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NCRT).

METHODS

The Taiwan Cancer Registry was queried for ESCC from 2008 to 2016. We enrolled 2250 patients with ESCC receiving NCRT plus open (n = 487) or thoracoscopic (n = 1763) oesophagectomy. One-to-two propensity score matching between open and thoracoscopic oesophagectomy was performed. Overall survival was compared between the 2 groups before and after propensity score matching. Univariable analysis and multivariable analysis were performed to identify prognostic factors.

RESULTS

After one-to-two propensity score matching, 353 patients were in the open group and 706 patients were in the thoracoscopic group. The 3-year overall survival rates for matched patients treated with open or thoracoscopic oesophagectomy were similar (39.18% vs 44.33%, p = 0.11). Better overall survival was associated with thoracoscopic oesophagectomy for the patients in the y-pathological complete response stage (pCR) (57.26% vs 65.19%, p = 0.045), y-pathological III stage (12.78% vs 22.31%, p = 0.028) and y-pathological T0N+ stage (15.79% vs 41.01%, p = 0.010). In multivariable analysis, surgical approach was an independent prognostic factor only before propensity score matching. After matching, surgical approach was not an independent prognostic factor.

CONCLUSIONS

This propensity-matched study demonstrated that open and thoracoscopic oesophagectomies are associated with similar long-term survival in patients with ESCC undergoing NCRT. Stage-specific comparisons showed that thoracoscopic oesophagectomy is associated with better survival than open oesophagectomy in patients with the pathological complete response, y-pathological III and y-pathological T0N+ stages and with similar survival in y-pathological I/II patients.