title: [Salvage surgery: cancer of the esophagus].
abstract: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is the gold standard of the treatment of advanced oesophageal cancer. The role of surgery after chemoradiotherapy is still debated. Feasibility of curative resection depends on dose of radiotherapy, morbimortality rates, and nutrition status at the end of the protocol especially for non-responders patients. Adding surgery to radiochemotherapy improves local tumour control but does not increase overall survival of patients with advanced oesophageal cancer. According to the two randomised trials published on the subject, surgery is not recommended after chemoradiotherapy for responders. Recommendations of French National Thesaurus are: exclusive chemoradiotherapy as reference, esophagectomy for residual tumour as alternative for operable patients. Surgery may be proposed for selected non-responders patients and some complete pathological response in expert center.
authors.affiliation: Service de chirurgie digestive et générale, hôpital Claude-Huriez, Lille, France. jp-triboulet@chru.fr
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Triboulet
mesh_terms: D003131:Combined Modality Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery*; D016629:Esophagectomy; D006801:Humans; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016879:Salvage Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome