Treatments for Esophageal Cancer

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Abstract
FOR oncologists, who deal with disabling and life-threatening diseases on a daily basis, esophageal cancers represent an unusually difficult problem. Although these cancers are not especially common, they produce enormous suffering and a high death rate, challenging clinical investigators to develop better treatments. Large retrospective reviews suggest that neither radiation therapy nor surgery reliably provides long-term control for unselected patients with apparently localized disease.1 In patients who undergo surgery, recurrence and death are most often attributed to untreated and unsuspected early metastatic disease, the presence of which has been documented in autopsies performed relatively soon after surgery.2 In patients treated . . .