Oesophagus

C15WHO Vol. 1

Digestive System

Prognosis

This section is being prepared by our editorial process.

🔬 Histological Types

📚 Latest Research

2026-09-08

Development of a biomarker-guided chemotherapy response model using combined CEA and CA19-9 profiles in esophageal cancer: A real-world pharmacotherapeutic study.

Can O, et al

A retrospective real-world cohort study of 38 patients with histologically confirmed esophageal adenocarcinoma found that simultaneous elevation of both baseline CEA and CA19-9 was associated with the poorest overall survival, yielding a multivariable hazard ratio of 2.22. Patients were classified into three exploratory biomarker-defined risk groups, and survival differences were observed across chemotherapy regimens within those groups, though the comparisons were exploratory and subject to treatment-selection bias. Tumors of the distal esophagus and gastroesophageal junction carried more favorable outcomes than cervical or thoracic lesions. The authors conclude that combined CEA and CA19-9 assessment is a practical and inexpensive risk-stratification tool, but prospective multicenter validation is required before these biomarkers can guide chemotherapy selection in routine clinical practice.

Pakistan journal of pharmaceutical sciences

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2026-09-08

First-line systemic therapy for advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: clinical implications for treatment selection after KEYNOTE-590, CheckMate 648, and RATIONALE-306.

Sagawa T, et al

A comprehensive review of three landmark clinical trials — KEYNOTE-590, CheckMate 648, and RATIONALE-306 — establishes that PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors combined with chemotherapy have fundamentally reshaped first-line treatment for advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). KEYNOTE-590 validated pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy across histologic subtypes using the Combined Positive Score (CPS) for PD-L1, while CheckMate 648 demonstrated that both nivolumab plus chemotherapy and nivolumab plus ipilimumab improve overall survival in ESCC, though only the chemotherapy combination yielded progression-free survival benefit. RATIONALE-306 added tislelizumab plus chemotherapy as a further evidence-based option, and critically, each trial employed a different PD-L1 scoring methodology — CPS, tumor-cell expression, or Tumor Area Positivity (TAP) — complicating cross-trial comparisons. The review concludes that optimal treatment selection should be guided by the need for rapid disease control, chemotherapy tolerance, toxicity profile, histology, and biomarker context rather than direct antibody-to-antibody comparisons.

Clinical journal of gastroenterology

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2026-09-04

Spatial mapping of cardiac dose-survival associations in oesophageal radiotherapy.

Marchant T, et al

A study of 452 patients treated with curative-intent radiotherapy for oesophageal cancer identified a spatially localized cardiac region where higher radiation dose was significantly associated with worse 12-month survival, with a maximum Cardiac Avoidance Area (CAA) dose threshold of 43.5 Gy producing significant survival stratification between patient groups. Using voxel-based image analysis and deformable CT registration, researchers found that this radiosensitive cardiac region partially overlapped with a previously defined CAA derived from lung radiotherapy studies and with the left atrium. Maximum CAA dose remained an independent predictor of survival on multivariable Cox regression analysis, supporting the clinical relevance of spatially defined cardiac dose metrics in oesophageal radiotherapy planning.

Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology

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