Oligometastatic Esophagogastric Cancer: Does It Exist and How Do We Treat It?

This narrative review aims to provide an overview of recently completed randomized trials and expert consensus recommendations, and their implications for clinical practice and future trial design in patients with de-novo esophagogastric oligometastatic disease (OMD).

The IKF-575/RENAISSANCE phase III trial showed no significant overall survival difference between systemic therapy alone and systemic therapy combined with local therapy for patients with gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer and de-novo OMD, except for patients with retroperitoneal lymph node metastases only. The ESO-Shanghai 13 phase II trial demonstrated superiority of adding local therapy to systemic therapy for progression-free and overall survival in oligometastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The OMEC project developed a multidisciplinary European consensus for OMD, proposing a restrictive definition of OMD. Clinical trial assessing the optimal treatment of care are urgently needed. The findings highlight the importance of strict patient selection for local metastasis-directed treatment and the need for stratifying patients based on histology and location of metastases. Future research should focus on identifying biomarkers and clinical features to guide multidisciplinary treatment approaches for OMD.