The Role of Surgery for Esophageal Cancer With Metastatic Disease (M1)

Treatment of stage IV esophageal cancer is traditionally palliative, but treatment response is usually poor. The role of surgery in the treatment of advanced esophageal cancer remains controversial. We sought to determine whether surgical treatment followed by neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy might provide survival benefits for these patients.

A retrospective review of esophageal cancer patients with M1 disease treated at National Taiwan University Hospital was performed from April 2002 to June 2021. Patient demographics and cancer staging, treatment, and disease recurrence, and time of follow up were included for analysis. Univariate and multivariate analysis was performed for overall survival and progression-free survival analysis. Propensity score matching based on patient age and tumor staging characteristics was also performed for analysis.