title: Chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery could improve the efficacy of treatments in patients with resectable esophageal carcinoma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The effectiveness of chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery (CRTS) in patients with resectable esophageal carcinoma remains controversial. We performed a systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Electronic databases were used to identify published studies between January 1992 and April 2012. Pooled relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was utilized to estimate the strength of the association between CRTS and surgery alone (SA) survival of the resectable esophageal carcinoma patients. Heterogeneity and publication bias were also assessed in the present study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The final analysis of 2755 resectable esophageal carcinoma cases from 21 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are presented. Compared to the SA group, the 1, 3- and 5-year survival rates were significantly higher in the CRTS group (all P < 0.05); the 3- and 5-year survival rates for the Eastern patients, Western patients, patients undergoing concurrent chemoradiotherapy, patients with squamous cell carcinoma, patients undergoing High-dose radiotherapy (≥ 40 Gy), and patients given either "cisplatin + Fluorouracil" or "cisplatin + paclitaxel" chemotherapy were significantly higher in the CRTS group (all P < 0.05). There were no statistical significances in the 3- and 5-year survival rates for patients undergoing sequential chemoradiotherapy or patients with adenocarcinoma between the two groups (all P > 0.05). Compared to the RCTS group, the surgery rate in the SA group was higher (P < 0.05), while the CRTS group had significantly higher radical resection rate, R0 resection rate and lower postoperative local recurrence rate (all P < 0.05). The differences in postoperative complication incidence, post-operative distant metastasis and postoperative mortality rate were not statistically significant between the two groups (all P > 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CRTS can significantly improve the survival and surgical conditions of patients with resectable esophageal carcinoma.
authors: Department of Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China.
authors: Feng
authors: F
authors: Wang
authors: Ya-mei
authors: YM
authors: Wang
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: He
authors: Xiang-ke
authors: XK
authors: Li
authors: Fang-hui
authors: FH
authors: Peng
authors: Xiao-li
authors: XL
authors: Yang
authors: Qing-xia
authors: QX
authors: Fan
mesh_terms: D059248:Chemoradiotherapy; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015996:Survival Rate