Abstract
Background
A pathological complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACRT) ensures long-term survival in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients following esophagectomy, but pCR patients are a minority. The aim here was to identify prognostic factors in patients with non-pCR ESCC after NACRT.
Methods
This is a retrospective study. Investigated were 5-year overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and relapse-free survival (RFS) among non-pCR ESCC patients divided into pT0N0, primary site pCR (pT0N+), lymph node pCR (pT+N0), and non-pCR in both the tumor and lymph node (pT+N+) subgroups after NACRT and esophagectomy. Focusing on the SUVmax reduction rate in the primary tumor in 88 patients who underwent FDG-PET before and after NACRT, we used univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models to identify prognostic factors.
Results
Although there were no significant survival differences among non-pCR ESCC patients with pT0N+, pT+N0, or pT+N+, survival rate among pT+N+patients was the poorest. After setting a 60% cutoff for the SUVmax reduction rate in the tumor, RFS curves for non-pCR patients significantly differed between patients above the cutoff and those below it. For pT+N+ patients, the SUVmax reduction rate (<60% vs ≥ 60%) was an independent prognostic factor of OS, DSS, and RFS.
Conclusion
Because ESCC patients with SUVmax reduction rates of <60% in the tumor after NACRT and categorized as pT+N+ after NACRT had significantly poorer prognoses, even after esophagectomy, a change in treatment strategy may be an option to improve survival.
Metastatic lymph node ratio demonstrates better prognostic stratification than pN staging in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after esophagectomy
