Esophageal Cancer Predicted Efficiently with Endosonography

BIRMINGHAM, Ala-A new report from the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston shows certain patients with esophageal cancer to have their long-term survival rates determined more efficiently with endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS).

Mohamad A. Eloubeidi, MD, has now working at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. He says esophageal cancer patients with M1a disease have a poor survival because of celiac lymph node metastases (CLN).

In a study of 211 patients with esophageal cancer, 182 of which had assessable celiac axes, Eloubeidi and his team used the EUS technology before surgical treatment, or in combination with a fine-needle aspiration biopsy. CLN was imaged in 40% of these patients, with the 5-year survival rate being 13% vs. 30% with those patients who had no detected CLNS. There were also 68 patients who had surgery and had no CLN involvement. They had a medical survival of 39.8 months, vs. 13.8 months for those who had malignant involvement.

Eloubeidi summarized after the study that the survival rate of patient with celiac adenopathy is less than those patient without the condition. He was able to determine this because of the use of EUS to see the celiac lymph node before chemotherapy and radiation.

He said the technology also allows physicians to examine lymph nodes after chemotherapy and radiation more carefully. They can determine more effectively now if the cancerous cells have been eradicated.

Eloubeidi concluded that patient with persistent disease located in the lymph nodes may have a higher survival rate with cycles of chemotherapy instead of surgery.

Information from Reuters Health

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