Role of a multidisciplinary team in administering radiotherapy for esophageal cancer

BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy (RT) is the major part of the treatment strategy set by a multidisciplinary team (MDT) for patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer (EC). The effect of an MDT collaboration on patients with EC who underwent RT is unclear. METHODS: We retrospectively collected all patients diagnosed with EC in the radiation oncology department at our institution from January 2015 to May 2017. The patients were divided into groups based on if they had their cases presented or not presented at the MDT meeting (with MDT and non-MDT, respectively). Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied at a ratio of 1:1 and the nearest neighbor matching method to compare the two groups. RESULTS: A total of 212 consecutive patients were analyzed, including 157 with MDT and 55 non-MDT. In the unmatched population, the patients with MDT were more likely to received chemotherapy than the non-MDT patients (84.7% vs. 69.1%; × 2 = 6.373; P = 0.012).MDT-patients had significantly improved overall survival compared with non-MDT patients (p = 0.025). In the multivariate analysis, MDT was an independent prognostic factor for OS in patients with EC who underwent RT (P = 0.019, HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.38–0.92). After PSM for baseline characteristics, the benefit of MDT for OS became more obvious. Additionally, we also found that MDT was an independent predictor of receiving chemotherapy by using logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: In patients who underwent radiotherapy for esophageal cancer, MDT was an independent factor for overall survival, which probably due to the selection of multimodality treatment when compared to non-MDT setting.