Postoperative long-term immunochemotherapy for esophageal carcinoma. 5 year survival

Two groups of patients with esophageal carcinoma were studied retrospectively: Group I as controls, included 50 patients who underwent esophageal resection mainly combined with preoperative radiation therapy during the period from 1965 to 1971; and Group 2 included 83 patients who were given the same treatment plus post-operative radiation and adjuvant postoperative long-term cancer immunochemotherapy during the period from 1972-1979. The one, two and five-year survival rates were 32.0, 14.0 and 12.0 per cent in Group 1, and 55.4, 35.8 and 21.5 per cent in Group 2 respectively. There were significant differences in one-year (p less than 0.02) and two-year (p less than 0.05) survival rates between the two groups. We also found that adjuvant therapy was effective in patients with no lymph node metastasis, while it was less effective in those with lymph node metastases.