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World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2016; 22(39): 8750-8759
Published online Oct 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i39.8750
Preoperative therapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer
Pankaj Kumar Garg, Jyoti Sharma, Ashish Jakhetiya, Aakanksha Goel, Manish Kumar Gaur
Pankaj Kumar Garg, Aakanksha Goel, Manish Kumar Gaur, Department of Surgery, University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, University of Delhi, Delhi 110095, India
Jyoti Sharma, Department of Surgical Oncology, Sawai Man Singh Medical College, Jaipur 302004, India
Ashish Jakhetiya, Department of Surgical Oncology, Dr BRA Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
Author contributions: Garg PK conceptualized the study; Garg PK and Sharma J searched the literature, analyzed the retrieved literature, and wrote the initial draft; Jakhetiya A, Goel A and Gaur MK provided critical inputs in literature search and analysis, and drafting the manuscript; all the authors read the final draft and approved it.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the author.
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: Dr. Pankaj Kumar Garg, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, University of Delhi, Dilshad Garden, Delhi 110095, India. dr.pankajgarg@gmail.com
Telephone: +91-11-22592536 Fax: +91-11-22590495
Received: June 7, 2016
Peer-review started: June 11, 2016
First decision: July 29, 2016
Revised: August 23, 2016
Accepted: September 28, 2016
Article in press: September 28, 2016
Published online: October 21, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: The literature suggests that preoperative chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery results in optimal outcome while managing locally advanced esophageal cancer; however, there is a need to compare preoperative chemoradiotherapy with chemotherapy alone to further refine the role of preoperative therapy. The standard of care continues to be debated due to difference of opinions and practices across the world and lack of any trial with head-to-head comparison between these two established treatment protocols.