Preliminary study of the dose of radiotherapy for patients with thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after local recurrence / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To evaluate the effects of different irradiation doses on postoperative local recurrence in patients with esophageal cancer after radio (chemo) therapy.Methods:Clinical data of 331 esophageal cancer patients presenting with postoperative local recurrence admitted to our hospital from 2009 to 2014 were collected. The recurrence site, the effects of different radiotherapy doses on the prognosis of patients and the independent prognostic factors were retrospectively analyzed. The survival rate was calculated by Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate prognostic analysis was performed by log-rank test. Multivariate prognostic analysis was conducted by Cox proportional hazard regression model.Results:The 1-, 3-and 5-year overall survival rates were 54.3%, 23.2% and 16.6%, respectively. The median overall survival was 13.4 months (95% CI 11.7-15.0). The median survival of patients with radiotherapy doses< 60 Gy and ≥60 Gy was 10.8 and 13.9 months ( P=0.013). Stratified analysis showed that patients with age< 60 years, no smoking history, no drinking history, no family history, upper thoracic segment, left thoracotomy, N 0 staging, log odds of positive lymph nodes (LODDS)< 0.030, recurrence time ≥ 13.1 months and recurrence site ≥ 2 had better prognosis when receiving radiotherapy dose ≥ 60 Gy ( P=0.038, 0.033, 0.001, 0.003, 0.018, 0.010, 0.041, 0.039, 0.043 and 0.007). Moreover, the short-term clinical efficacy of patients treated with ≥60 Gy dose was significantly better than that of those with<60 Gy dose ( P<0.001), which did not increase the incidence of ≥grade 2 radiation-induced gastritis ( P=0.977) or radiation-induced pneumonitis ( P=0.444). Cox multivariate analysis showed that the LODDS size, prescription dose and short-term efficacy were the independent factors affecting clinical prognosis of patients ( P=0.006, 0.008 and<0.001). Conclusions:The recommended dose for esophageal cancer patients with local recurrence after radiotherapy (chemotherapy) is greater than or equal to 60 Gy. The results of this study need to be confirmed by prospective studies with a large sample size.