DUBLIN, July16 -- For esophageal-cancer patients, a node-negative status after neoadjuvant chemoradiation is the best predictor of the outcome of surgery, researchers here found.
The finding is important because it shifts the focus from the primary tumor to the lymph nodes and may influence the way clinical trials are designed, according to John Vincent Reynolds, M.D., of St. James's Hospital and Trinity College Dublin and colleagues.
It also may help to clarify the "confused and conflicting" interpretations of randomized clinical trials of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy for esophageal cancer, Dr. Reynolds and colleagues reported in the May issue of Annals of Surgery.
Although clinicians widely believe there are patients for whom neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy works well, identifying them is not easy, the researcher said.
