Pre-operative chemoradiotherapy with or without induction chemotherapy for operable locally-advanced esophageal cancer

BACKGROUND: For patients with operable locally advanced esophageal carcinoma (LA-EC), we hypothesized that pre-operative induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy (IC-CRT) would improve progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) when compared to chemoradiotherapy (CRT). METHODS: This was a single institution retrospective cohort study including patients with LA-EC who received preoperative-intent IC-CRT vs. CRT between 2013–2019. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate OS and PFS. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to assess for variables associated with survival. The impact of treatment group on pathologic response was assessed by chi-square. RESULTS: Ninty-five patients were included for analysis (IC-CRT n=59; CRT n=36) and the median follow-up was 37.7 months (IQR: 16.8–56.1). There was no difference in median PFS or OS for IC-CRT or CRT, 22 months (95% CI: 12–59) vs. 32 months (95% CI: 10–57) (P=0.64) and 39 months (95% CI: 23–not reached) vs. 56.5 months (95% CI: 38–not reached) (P=0.36), respectively. Amongst the subset of patients with adenocarcinoma histology, there was no difference in median PFS or OS, nor was there when analyses were further restricted to those who received ≥3 cycles of induction 5-fluorouracil and platinum, or for those who underwent esophagectomy. Pathologic complete response occurred in 45% vs. 29% (P=0.24) and N-stage regression occurred in 72% vs. 58% (P=0.28) of patients in the IC-CRT and CRT cohorts, respectively. Distant metastasis occurred in 44% of patients in each treatment cohort. CONCLUSIONS: For patients with LA-EC, preoperative-intent IC-CRT was not associated with improved PFS or OS when compared with CRT.