Abstract
We analyzed the correlation between the treatment results and the clinicopathologic evidence in 38 cervical esophageal cancer patients who underwent a curative operation at the Kurume University Hospital between 1989 and 2003. The following results were obtained. 1) Lymph node metastasis was detected in 3 (33%) of the 9 patients whose cancer invaded the anterior wall. On the contrary, 9 (90%) of the 10 patients whose cancer invaded the lateral or posterior wall had lymph node metastasis. There was a statistically significant difference in the rate of lymph node metastases (p=0.01) between them. 2) Recurrence was detected in 3 (33%) of the 9 patients whose cancer invaded the anterior wall. On the other hand, 9 (90%) of the 10 patients whose cancer invaded the lateral or posterior wall had lymph node metastasis. There was a statistically significant difference in the rate of lymph node metastases (p=0.01) between them. 3) The cause-specific survival rate determined using the Kaplan-Meier method was 54% in patients with anterior invasion and 11% in patients with either lateral or posterior invasion. These results indicate that patients whose cancer has invaded the lateral or posterior wall should therefore be counseled to consider receiveing more conservative therapy in order to obtain a better quality of life.
