Evaluation of ten-year survival after operation for upper- and mid-thoracic esophageal cancer.

From 1946 to 1976, we studied 1,329 cases of radical resection of upper and mid-thoracic esophageal cancer, a cancer whose prognosis is especially poor. Of these, 7 patients lived longer than 20 years, and 58 longer than 10 years. There were 137 patients who lived for more than 5 years. We particularly examined the ones who lived longer than 10 years, and from the findings of histological and pathological specimens we judged the malignancy grade according to the classification of histological malignancy which we had proposed earlier (cellular atypism, structural atypism, and infiltration). Malignancy grade was demonstrated to be closely associated with the prognosis and survival time.