ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the rationality and prognostic value of the Criteria for clinical staging of esophageal cancer treated by non-surgical methods (Draft) by comparison with the criteria for postoperative pathological staging.Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 162 patients with esophageal cancer who underwent radical resection at the Second Hospital of Soochow University from December 2008 to July 2012.Preoperative clinical staging and postoperative pathological staging were performed,and the Kappa statistic was used to evaluate the agreement between the two staging systems.The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate overall survival (OS) rates,and the log-rank test was used for survival difference analysis and univariate analysis.Results The coincidence rates of T,N,and TNM stages were 67.9％,57.4％,and 67.9％,respectively,and the agreements were moderate,poor,and moderate,with Kappa values of 0.544,0.302,and 0.509.The follow-up rate was 93.2％.The 1-,2-,and 3-year sample sizes were 127,66 and 27,respectively.The 1-,2-,and 3-year OS rates were 82.6％,56.2％,and 37.7％,respectively.There were no significant differences in OS between patients with preoperative T1 and T2 stages and between patients with preoperative N0 and N1 stages (P =0.086,0.101),but significant differences were observed between patients with different T stages,N stages,or TNM stages (P =0.000-0.028).This was in line with the prognostic results based on the postoperative pathological staging.Conclusions The clinical staging criteria (draft) have moderate agreement with the criteria for postoperative pathological staging and have good prognostic value,but they require further refinement and improvement.