The Comparative Effect of Definitive Chemoradiotherapy and Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy Plus Surgery on One-Year Survival Rate of Esophageal Cancer Patients

Esophageal cancer is a malignancy with a poor survival rate, and the optimal management of esophageal cancer patients is still controversial. This study aimed to compare the one-year survival of patients who had received definitive chemoradiotherapy (DCRT) or neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy plus surgery (NCRT+S).

In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the medical records of esophageal cancer were extracted from 2018 to 2019; the last survival status of patients was obtained one year after the end of the treatment course. Data were analyzed using SPSS (version 16), and survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method with the log-rank test. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant for all the performed tests.

Among 43 eligible patients, 39.5% were males and 60.5% were females. The mean age of the patients was 68.16±12.03 years. In this population, 81.4% of cases had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and the rest had adenocarcinoma (ADC). In addition, 58.1% and 41.9% of cases were treated by DCRT and NCRT+S, respectively. The one-year survival rate was 68% and 66.67% in the DCRT and NCRT+S groups, respectively (P>0.05). The one-year survival rate did not have significant relevance to the age of patients and histologic subtype. In terms of gender, there was no significant difference between males and females regarding the one-year survival rate.

There were no statistically significant differences in the one-year survival rate of the patients in the two treatment groups; thus, further studies are recommended to confirm the results.