Treatment of esophageal cancer in patients over 80 years old

A total of 828 patients with esophageal cancer were treated at the Second Department of Surgery of Tokai University in the 20-year period from 1975 to June 1994, including 45 patients over 80 years old. We reviewed these elderly patients to assess the optimum therapeutic approach for such individuals. In recent years, the number of elderly patients with esophageal cancer has steadily been increasing. Advanced cancer is more common among this group, but early cancer has also been detected more frequently in recent years. Of the 45 elderly patients (80%) in our series, 36 were encountered in the last 10 years. As 28.9% of the patients had multiple cancers, a careful workup was necessary preoperatively. Since most patients (88.9%) had complications and were also in a poor general condition, limited surgery was recommended in consideration of the postoperative quality of life. The indications for endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) may be able to be extended to submucosal1 (sm1) cancer without lymph node swelling. Postoperative complications occurred in 60% of those undergoing surgical resection or esophageal bypass, although death only resulted in 1 case. The 5-year survival rate after surgical resection was 30.8%. These results therefore support the use of surgical treatment for selected elderly patients with esophageal cancer.