Background: Endosonography is a significant advance in the preoperative staging (TNM classification) of esophageal cancer. Its accuracy for evaluating depth of tumor invasion is over 80%.
Methods: A multicenter retrospective cohort study of patients with esophageal carcinomas defined to be invasive (T4) by endosonography was performed to compare the survival of surgically and nonsurgically treated patients. Median survival time, overall mortality, and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were compared by treatment group. Univariate and Cox regression analysis were used to evaluate the effects of various prognostic factors and treatment on the risk of death.
Results: A total of 79 patients were studied. The surgical group (Group I, n = 42) was significantly younger and had more distal tumors (adenocarcinomas) than the nonsurgical group (Group II, n = 37). Endosonography was significantly more accurate than CT scanning in identifying tumor invasion (87.5% versus 43.8%, respectively, p = .0002). Overall mortality rate was not significantly different between treatment groups; 59.5% of the surgical group and 64.9% of the nonsurgical group were dead at follow-up (p = 0.65). Similarly, the median survival times of Group I and Group II patients were similar (5.2 and 7.0 months, respectively, p = 0.50). Survival curves for the two groups were almost overlapping (log rank test, p = 0.84). Even after adjusting for age, histologic diagnosis, tumor location, and regional lymph node status, surgical treatment did not significantly influence survival (p = 0.24).
Conclusions: Endosonography accurately identifies patients with invasive T4 tumors who have a poor prognosis. This prognosis is independent of mode of therapy.