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New Treatment Shows Promise for Esophageal Cancer Patients

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New Treatment Shows Promise for Esophageal Cancer Patients

Esophageal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world. It is especially common in China. Many patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage, which makes treatment more difficult. Surgery is often used, but doctors usually recommend other treatments before surgery to improve the chances of survival. These treatments are called “neoadjuvant therapies.”

Two common approaches are chemoradiotherapy (a mix of chemotherapy and radiation) and immunochemotherapy (a mix of chemotherapy and immunotherapy). This study compared how well these two treatments work before surgery in patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

The research looked at almost 400 patients. Some received chemoradiotherapy, while others received immunochemotherapy before having surgery. The most important finding was that patients who received immunochemotherapy had better long-term survival. After three years, nearly 74% of patients treated with immunochemotherapy were alive, compared to 55% of those who had chemoradiotherapy. The benefits were even stronger in patients with stage III disease or when cancer had already spread to lymph nodes.

The study also found that a “complete response” to treatment, meaning no cancer seen in the removed tissue, predicted survival in the chemoradiotherapy group. But this was not the case for those who had immunochemotherapy, suggesting the immune system may keep working after treatment.

For patients, this is hopeful news. It means adding immunotherapy to chemotherapy before surgery may improve survival chances, especially for those with more advanced disease. Doctors are now exploring this approach further to make it a standard option in the future.

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Dr. Harsh J Shah

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Dr Harsh Shah - GI & HPB Oncosurgeon in India
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