Esophageal carcinoma: long-term survival in consecutive series of patients through a retrospective cohort study

AIM: The present study aimed to investigate the influence of histological factors on survival of patients with esophageal cancer. BACKGROUND: Esophageal cancer is almost the common form of malignancy in the eastern world. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Through a retrospective cohort study a consecutive series of 134 patients with definite diagnosis of esophageal cancer who had been hospitalized at the Towhid hospital, Sanandaj city, Kurdistan province western Iran during a five-year period from 2006 onward were recruited. The survival time of patients stratified by this grouping method were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression. RESULTS: Overall, 127 males (55.1%), with a mean age of 65.38 ±11.62 years were included. Based on histological type of tumor, 23 patients (18.1%) had adenocarcinoma (AC) and 94 patients (74.0%) had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Gender was not significantly associated with survival (Log rank =0.480). Location of tumor (log rank =0.014), histological type (log rank ≤0.001) and grade of tumor (log rank =0.008) had significantly influenced the survival rates variation. For patients at initial stages of the disease, the overall one-year, two years and five years survival rates were 73.2%, 52.8% and 31.2% respectively. For advanced stages, the survival ranged from 46.3% in the first year to 8.2% in the five years. The five-year survival rates (by year) were estimated to be 49%, 27%, 24%, 22% and 19% respectively. CONCLUSION: Tumor grade, tumor deferential, clinical staging and location of the tumor were the prognostic factors for survival in patients with esophageal cancer.