The clinical and histopathological contributing factors influencing the effectiveness of preoperative hyperthermo-chemo-radiotherapy for the patients with esophageal cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The effectiveness of hyperthermic treatment combined with irradiation and chemotherapy for patients with esophageal cancer on local response as well as on long-time survival has been reported. In order to investigate the contributing factors influencing the effectiveness of preoperative hyperthermo-chemo-radiotherapy (HCR therapy), this study was performed.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

One hundred nineteen patients with esophageal cancer who underwent preoperative HCR therapy followed by esophagectomy were reviewed in this retrospective study. The rate of effectiveness of preoperative HCR therapy was then compared in resected tissue specimens with regard to such factors as age, sex, the location of the tumor, the longitudinal diameter of the esophagogram, the radiographic type of tumor, the histological type and the histological depth of invasion using univariate and multivariate analyses.

RESULTS

Both univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the clinical and histopathological factors which had the greatest effect on preoperative HCR therapy were well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma regarding the histological type and tumorous type regarding the radiographic types.

CONCLUSION

We thus conclude that preoperative HCR therapy shows great promise for the treatment of patients with esophageal cancer, especially in instances of well differentiated and radiographic tumorous type squamous cell carcinoma.