Surgery With or Without Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Cancer of the Esophagus

Summary

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. It is not yet known whether surgery is more effective with or without chemotherapy and radiation therapy for cancer of the esophagus. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of surgery with or without combination chemotherapy and radiation therapy in treating patients who have cancer of the esophagus that can be surgically removed.

Timeline

Start

1997-10

Primary completion

2000-03

Completion

2000-03

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

paper An intent-to-treat analysis showed a median survival of 4.48 v 1.79 years in favor of trimodality therapy (exact stratified log-rank, P = .002). PMID 18309943 ↗

Publications

• Results Tepper J, Krasna MJ, Niedzwiecki D, Hollis D, Reed CE, Goldberg R, Kiel K, Willett C, Sugarbaker D, Mayer R. Phase III trial of trimodality therapy with cisplatin, fluorouracil, radiotherapy, and surgery compared with surgery alone for esophageal cancer: CALGB 9781. J Clin Oncol. 2008 Mar 1;26(7):1086-92. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2007.12.9593.
• Results Krasna M, Tepper JE, Niedzwiecki D, et al.: Trimodality therapy is superior to surgery alone in esophageal cancer: results of CALGB 9781. [Abstract] American Society of Clinical Oncology 2006 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, 26-28 January 2006, San Francisco, California. A-4, 2006.
• Results Tepper JE, Krasna M, Niedzwiecki D, et al.: Superiority of trimodality therapy to surgery alone in esophageal cancer: results of CALGB 9781. [Abstract] J Clin Oncol 24 (Suppl 18): A-4012, 2006.

Drugs

Indications