World journal of surgery
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World journal of surgery · Feb 2010
Factors influencing the long-term survival in patients with esophageal cancer who underwent esophagectomy after chemoradiotherapy.
Salvage esophagectomy is potentially the only treatment available that can offer a chance of long-term survival when definitive chemoradiotherapy (CRT) fails to achieve local control for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, salvage esophagectomy is a highly invasive procedure with various postoperative complications compared to planned esophagectomy after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT). We hypothesize that severe postoperative complications may affect not only surgical mortality but also tumor recurrence and long-term survival for patients with salvage esophagectomy after definitive CRT. ⋯ This study reveals that postoperative morbidity affects not only the perioperative mortality but also the long-term survival of patients with ESCC who undergo salvage esophagectomy after definitive CRT.