Neo-adjuvant Chemotherapy For Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer is an invasive and fatal malignancy,and its incidence increases worldwide.Adenocarcinoma is the major esophageal cancer in developed countries,and there are approximately 260,000 new cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in China.It accounts for the fifth largest number of new cases of malignant neoplasms in the country,and its mortality rate of 13.4 per 100,000 people is the 4th among all malignant tumors[1].Comprehensive treatment with combination chemothe-rapy prior to surgical resection has been accepted as a treatment standard by many people,although the debate about its overall impact on survival remains.The 5-year survival rate of esophageal cancer in a large-scale investigation of esophageal cancer in Japan and China by LIN et al.[2] was only 13%.In recent years,a large number of clinical studies have shown that preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy(Neoadjuvant chemotherapy NC)can improve the survival time of patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer.This review highlights the major studies that provided the best evidence for the benefits of preoperative chemotherapy for adv-anced esophageal cancer.