The efficacy of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy for esophageal cancer with lymph node metastasis

: The clinical significance of postoperative 5-fluorouracil+cisplatin(FP) therapy for esophageal cancer with lymph node metastasis was retrospectively investigated. Overall, 37 patients who underwent curative resection of esophageal squamous cell cancer with lymph node metastasis were investigated. Clinical background and prognosis were compared between patients treated with FP therapy(FP group, 13 patients) and patients treated without FP therapy(non-FP group, 24 patients). In the FP group, the completion rate and adverse events were also analyzed. No significant difference was found between the FP and non-FP group in terms of age, gender, tumor location, number of dissected lymph nodes, and number of lymph node metastases. However, the frequency of 3-field lymph node dissection in the FP group was higher than that in the non-FP group(p=0.04), and the risk for operation in the FP group tended to be lower than that in the non-FP group(p=0.06). There was no significant difference in disease-free survival between these groups(p=0.46). Overall survival time in the FP group tended to be longer than that in the non-FP group (p=0.06). In the FP group, 2 patients with Grade 3 adverse events were recognized, and the completion rate of FP therapy was 77%. Although we analyzed a small number of patients in this study, postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy using FP does not contribute to the prevention of recurrence in esophageal cancer patients with lymph node metastasis.