A clinical study in undifferentiated small cell carcinoma of the esophagus / 中国癌症杂志

ABSTRACT

Background and purpose:Esophageal cancer(EC) is one of the most common cancers that account for cancer-related deaths and over 400,000 new cases has been diagnosed per year.The morbility of small cell carcinoma of the esophagus(SCEC) is very low.This paper was to study was the clinical characteristics,treatment and prognosis of undifferentiated small cell carcinoma of the esophagus(SCEC).Methods:From 1961 to 2003,743 patients with SCEC were treated in different hospitals.The number of small cell carcinoma of the esophagus seen accounted for 1.38% of esophageal cancer treated in those hospitals in the same period.the average age was 56.8(range,51 to 66).511 of patients were male and 232 female.2 of them had primary tumor in the cervical proportion of the esophagus,68 in the upper thoracic proportion,420 in the mid thoracic proportion,252 in the lower proportion and 1 in the whole esophagus.88 patients were treated by surgery alone,23 by radiotherapy alone,24 patients by chemotherapy alone and all other of patients were treated by combined modality.Results:The median survival was 12.4 months for all patients,with 10.8 months for surgery,6.2 months for radiotherapy,6.6 months for chemotherapy,14.7 months for surgery combined with radiotherapy,16.1 months for surgery combined with chemotherapy,12.3 months for chemoradiotherapy and 16.2 months for surgery combined with chemoradiotherapy,respectively.The survival rates at 1,2,3,4,and 5 years were 56.4%、27%、19.3%、11.1%、(9.7%) for the whole group,respectively.Conclusions:We recommend that combined modality should be used for SCEC.The combination of surgery and multi-drug chemotherapy may improve the treatment outcomes for the patients with early stage SCEC.