Modern approaches to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma therapy: paradigm shift?

Esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the most aggressive malignant neoplasms, ranking sixth among oncological causes of death. According to GLOBOCAN, more than half a million people die from this disease every year, and by 2040 this indicator is expected to increase almost twice. In most patients, esophageal cancer is diagnosed at stages III–IV of the disease. Currently, the standard of treatment for inoperable patients with EC is simultaneous chemoradiotherapy.

One of the main methods of treatment of patients with non-metastatic esophageal lesion remains surgical intervention in the volume of esophagectomy with radical lymph dissection, accompanied by quite frequent serious postoperative complications. However, the results of surgical treatment of locally advanced esophageal cancer alone remain unsatisfactory, and the fiveyear survival rate is less than 20 %. In order to improve the oncological results of treatment, various combinations of drug and radiation therapy are used (preoperative chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy, independent chemoradiotherapy). To date, recommendations for the treatment of locally advanced esophageal cancer vary from country to country. Trimodal therapy (preoperative chemoradiotherapy up to TFD – 46 Gy with 5 cycles of weekly chemotherapy according to the carboplatin + paclitaxel scheme followed by surgical treatment) is the standard in operable patients with non-metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus in our and European countries. In Asian countries, preference is given to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, based on the data of the JCOG1109 (NExT) study, in which it was shown that the addition of docetaxel to neoadjuvant therapy with cisplatin and fluorouracil is accompanied by an improvement in overall survival and acceptable toxicity, compared with the CF regimen and chemoradiotherapy. A separate issue is the place of lifesaving esophagectomy in patients who have received a course of radical chemoradiotherapy. Unfortunately, according to several researchers, recurrent or persistent esophageal cancer remains an urgent problem with a risk of relapse of the disease in up to 60 % of cases.

We have studied the data of the Russian and global literature concerning the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus.

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