Prognostic analysis of three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy for elderly patients with esophageal carcinoma / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the prognosis and its related factors of three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) for elderly patients with esophageal carcinoma. Methods From January 2001 to August 2007, 89 elderly patients aged 65 years or more with esophageal carcinoma were treated with 3D-CRT. And the local control rates, survival rates and its related prognostic factors were evaluated retrospectively, using SSPS11.5 software. Results The 1-, 2-, 3-and 4-year local recurrence-free survival rates were 65.2%, 43.0%, 27.3% and 22.3%, respectively. The 1-,2-, 3-and 4-year overall survival rates were 68.5%, 48.8%, 36.8% and 25.2%, respectively. And the median survival time was 21.5 months. With univariate analysis, the significant prognostic factors included the different diet before radiotherapy (χ~2=6.26, P=0. 012), T stage (χ~2=8. 80, P=0. 003), N stage (χ~2=4.33, P=0. 038), clinical stage (χ~2=7.88, P=0. 005), the largest diameter of tumor in CT scanning image (χ~2=10.88, P=0.004), recent efficacy (χ~2=5.28, P=0. 022) and chemotherapy (χ~2=5.49, P=0.019). And the factors which were not related with prognosis included gender (χ~2=0.74, P=0. 390), age (χ~2=1.89, P=0. 170), lesion length showed by esophageal angiography (χ~2=2. 38, P=0.123), lesion length showed by CT (χ~2=2.69, P=0.101),primary tumor site (χ~2=2.12, P=0. 146), coexistent disease (χ~2=0. 03, P=0. 874), exposure mode (χ~2=0.04, P=0.847) and radiation dose (χ~2=0. 24, P=0. 627). Multivariate analysis revealed that the different diet before treatment (P=0. 002), the clinical stage (P=0. 007) and chemotherapy (P=0. 011) were independent prognostic factors. Radiation induced esophagitis was observed in 20 cases in grade 0, 30 cases in grade 1, 32 cases in grade 2, 7 cases in grade 3. And acute radiation pneumonitis was observed in 89 patients, with 57 in grade 0, 20 in grade 1, 8 in grade 2, 2 in grade 3 and 2 in grade 5. Until the end date of follow-up, 60 patients had died 29 cases died of local recurrence or uncontrolled disease, 11 cases died of metastasis, 5 cases died of local recurrence with metastasis, and 15 cases died of other reasons. Conclusions 3D-CRT can be considered as an effective and feasible approach for elderly patients with esophageal cancer. The 3D-CRT provides them with less obstruction of diet, early clinical stage and longer survival time. 3D-CRT combined with chemotherapy may improve survival rate.