Carcinoma arising in Barrett's esophagus (a report of 51 cases)

Fifty-one patients with carcinoma arising in Barrett's esophagus were treated surgically from 1971 to 1990. This represented 10.2% of all treated cases with esophageal carcinoma during the same period. The mean age was 63 years. The most common symptom was dysphagia. According to pTNM staging, 18 were stage II, 3 stage III and 3 stage IV. all patients were treated by surgery. The 30-day hospital mortality was 3.98%. The one, two and five-year survival rates were 45.9%, 25.0% and 13.6%, respectively. The 5-year survival rate was significantly greater for patients with stage II (25.0%) than for patients with stage III+IV (4.5%) (P<0.05) and for tumor length less than 6 cm (21%) than for tumor length greater than 6 cm (0). The results indicate that the survival rate following resection is closely related to the clinical stage and tumor size.