Salvage surgery after definitive chemoradiotherapy for esophageal cancer

Background Definitive chemoradiotherapy has been performed as a first-line treatment for esophageal cancer, whereas salvage surgery might be the only reliable treatment for patients with recurrence after definitive chemoradiotherapy.Methods We reviewed 38 patients with squamous cell carcinoma who underwent esophagectomy and 6 patients who underwent lymphadenectomy after definitive chemoradiotherapy (≥50 Gy).Results The median survival time and 5-year survival rate after salvage esophagectomy were 16 months and 27%, respectively. Three of the 7 patients who had cervical esophageal cancer underwent cervical esophagectomy with laryngeal preservation. Two patients (5.2%) who underwent salvage esophagectomy with three-field lymphadenectomy before 1997 died of postoperative complications, but no patient died of complications thereafter. Although the overall survival after salvage esophagectomy was correlated with residual tumor (R) (P = 0.0097), the median survival time of 7 patients with residual tumors (R₂) was 7 months. Overall postoperative survival was closely correlated with the response to chemoradiotherapy (P < 0.0001) but was not associated with histologic effects on resected specimens. Survival was significantly correlated with the depth of viable tumor invasion (pT) (P = 0.0013) and with lymph node metastasis (pN) (P < 0.0001). Long-term survival was achieved in 5 of the 6 patients who underwent salvage lymphadenectomy.Conclusions Salvage surgery should be considered for patients with recurrence after definitive chemoradiotherapy. Salvage lymphadenectomy may be useful for recurrence confined to the lymph nodes whereas postoperative complications of salvage esophagectomy should be warranted.