Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2015; 21(28): 8644-8652
Published online Jul 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i28.8644
Aggressive surgical resection does not improve survival in operable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma with N2-3 status
Yu-Zhen Zheng, Wei Zhao, Yi Hu, Xiao-Xiao Ding-Lin, Jing Wen, Hong Yang, Qian-Wen Liu, Kong-Jia Luo, Qing-Yuan Huang, Jun-Ying Chen, Jian-Hua Fu
Yu-Zhen Zheng, Yi Hu, Hong Yang, Qian-Wen Liu, Kong-Jia Luo, Qing-Yuan Huang, Jun-Ying Chen, Jian-Hua Fu, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong Province, China
Wei Zhao, Department of Medical Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong Province, China
Xiao-Xiao Ding-Lin, Department of Oncology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong Province, China
Jing Wen, Department of Experimental Research, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong Province, China
Yu-Zhen Zheng, Yi Hu, Jing Wen, Hong Yang, Qian-Wen Liu, Kong-Jia Luo, Qing-Yuan Huang, Jun-Ying Chen, Jian-Hua Fu, Guangdong Esophageal Cancer Institute, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Zheng YZ and Zhao W contributed equally to this study; Fu JH conceived of and designed the experiments; Zheng YZ and Zhao W performed the experiments; Hu Y, Ding-Lin XX, Wen J, and Yang H analyzed the data; Liu QW, Luo KJ, Huang QY, and Chen JY contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; and Zhao YZ wrote the paper.
Supported by Chinese Ministry of Health Key Program, No. 179 and National Natural Science Foundation of China General Program, No. 81272635.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from all patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at fujh_sysucc@163.com. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jian-Hua Fu, Professor, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, No. 651, Dongfeng East Road, Guangzhou 510060, Guangzhou province, China. fujh_sysucc@163.com
Telephone: +86-20-87343258 Fax: +86-20-87343268
Received: February 27, 2015
Peer-review started: February 28, 2015
First decision: March 26, 2015
Revised: April 1, 2015
Accepted: May 2, 2015
Article in press: May 4, 2015
Published online: July 28, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Esophageal cancer is one of the most fatal malignant cancers worldwide, and survival is still unsatisfactory for locally advanced subjects. Until now, the optimal multimodality therapy has not yet been established. The assessment of nodal status might facilitate the selection of the most effective treatment for operable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). We retrospectively analyzed 1490 OSCC patients classified according to their nodal statuses (N0 vs N1 vs N2-3). Our results demonstrate the positive role of combined therapy in OSCC with lymph node metastasis, and further suggest that aggressive surgical resection does not improve survival in patients with N2-3 status.