Survival in operable esophageal cancer doubled in patients who received preoperative chemoradiotherapy, results of a multicenter trial showed.
Median overall survival was 49.4 months with neoadjuvant therapy and 24.0 months without. Neoadjuvant therapy also improved surgeons’ odds of achieving clear/close margins (P<0.001), Dutch investigators reported in the May 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The carboplatin-paclitaxel chemotherapy and concurrent radiation therapy were well tolerated, according to Ate van der Gaast, MD, of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, and co-authors.