The Current Evidence on Neoadjuvant Therapy for Locally Advanced Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment for locally advanced esophageal cancer. Neoadjuvant therapy is recommended to improve survival, based on the results of sev-eral randomized trials and meta-analyses. However, controversy remains regarding how to combine surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Moreover, in East Asia, the pre-dominant histological type is esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, which has a different epidemiology and tumor biology from esophageal or gastroesophageal junctional ade-nocarcinoma. As such, the management of esophageal cancer in East Asia seems to be different from that in Western countries. Thus, this article reviews the current evidence on neoadjuvant therapy and considers the optimal combinations and ongoing strategies of multimodal therapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Keywords

• esophageal neoplasms
• squamous cell carcinoma
• neoadjuvant therapy
• chemotherapy
• chemoradiotherapy