Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 32:59-63 (2002)
© 2002 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
Advanced Esophageal Cancer with Esophago-bronchial Fistula Successfully Treated by Chemoradiation Therapy with Additional Endoscopic Resection: a Case Report
1Division of Digestive Endoscopy and Gastrointestinal Oncology and 2Division of Radiation Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan
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ABSTRACT |
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 TOP ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONCASE REPORTDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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Chemoradiation is potentially curative for esophageal cancer in various stages, but local failure is a major problem. The present case was a 49-year-old male diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer with an esophago-bronchial fistula and lymph node metastasis. Histological diagnosis by biopsy was adenosquamous cell carcinoma. Chemoradiotherapy comprising intravenous infusion of cisplatin and continuous infusion of 5-fluorouracil with concurrent radiation was initiated in July 1997. In December 1997, after four courses of therapy, partial remission was obtained and the fistula closed with a remnant polypoid lesion at the primary site, which remained even after six courses of treatment. In February 1998, endoscopic polypectomy was performed for the remnant lesion and histological examination revealed that it contained adenocarcinoma cells. Thereafter, no additional treatment was performed and the patient has been disease-free for 3.5 years. This case suggests that additional endoscopic resection is an optional treatment for local failure after chemoradiation.
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INTRODUCTION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCASE REPORTDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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Surgical resection has been recognized as a standard treatment for esophageal cancer. In recent years, however, a combination of chemotherapy comprising infusion of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) with cisplatin (CDDP) and concurrent radiation therapy has been reported to be potentially curative for unresectable esophageal cancer and has a survival comparable to surgery for resectable esophageal cancer (1–4). Complete remission (CR) can be obtained in >50% of patients with T2/3 (UICC–TNM) esophageal cancer (1). The CR rate for T4 disease, however, is ~30% and most of the non-CR cases are due to remaining locoregional disease (4). Thus, local failure is one of the major problems in chemoradiotherapy.
Progression of the primary tumor usually causes some serious medical conditions such as impaired oral intake, pneumonia and bleeding. Because surgical resection after definitive chemoradiotherapy has various obstacles, mostly due to severe fibrosis, salvage therapy for local failures after chemoradiotherapy has not yet been established.
We report a case of advanced esophageal cancer with a pretreatment esophago-bronchial fistula successfully treated with chemoradiotherapy followed by endoscopic resection.
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CASE REPORT |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCASE REPORTDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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The patient was a 49-year-old male with cough, general fatigue, dysphagia and a weight loss of 5 kg, referred to our hospital in June 1997. Endoscopic examination revealed an advanced esophageal cancer located on the middle thoracic esophagus (Fig. 1A). Histological analysis of the biopsy specimen revealed adenosquamous carcinoma. A computed tomography (CT) scan indicated a thickened esophageal wall that compressed the left main bronchus, suggesting direct invasion (Fig. 1B) and one lymph node 10 mm in diameter located on the middle thoracic paraesophageal region. Esophagography revealed that the lesion was 9 cm in length and associated with an esophago-bronchial fistula (Fig. 1C). CT revealed no evidence of distant metastasis. Thus, the clinical stage was diagnosed as T4N1M0 according to the UICC classification and this case was considered to be unresectable.
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Because of the presence of the esophago-bronchial fistula, the patient was admitted to our hospital and managed under fasting and complete parenteral nutrition via central vein. In July 1997, a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy was initiated. The initial treatment schedule comprised two courses of drip infusion of CDDP (40 mg/m2) on days 1 and 8 and continuous infusion of 5-FU (400 mg/m2/day) on days 1–5 and 8–12, every 5 weeks.
Radiation therapy was delivered concurrently with chemotherapy to a total dose of 60 Gy in 30 fractions over 8 weeks. It was started with 10 MV X-rays via AP–PA opposed ports up to 40 Gy and a booster dose of 20 Gy was given via bilateral oblique ports with spinal cord shield. The target volume included the primary tumor with a 3 cm margin craniocaudally (Fig. 2). After two courses of the chemoradiotherapy, four courses of chemotherapy with CDDP (80 mg/m2) on day 1 and 5-FU (800 mg/m2) on days 1–5 were performed every 4 weeks. The case was complicated with grade 3 stomatitis and grade 1 nausea, with no severe hematological toxicities, bleeding or infection during the treatment. Despite an esophago-bronchial fistula, the patient did not develop pneumonia during this treatment series, although he sometimes complained of a small amount of cough and sputa. Low-grade fever occurred once after three courses, but decreased following administration of antibiotics for 6 days.
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After four treatment courses, esophagography in December 1997 indicated closure of the esophago-bronchial fistula. This closure was confirmed by endoscopy. Endoscopic examination revealed a small remnant polypoid lesion, however, which was confirmed histologically as adenosquamous carcinoma in a biopsy specimen taken by ordinary biopsy forceps. After six treatment courses, CT examination detected no thickening of the esophageal wall and no lymph node swelling, but the polypoid lesion showed no change (Fig. 3) in esophagoscopy and the response of chemoradiation was evaluated as non-CR.
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After biopsy, two endoscopic examinations confirmed that there were no remnant cancer cells in the mucosa surrounding the polypoid lesion and endoscopic ultrasonography confirmed that the polypoid cancer was limited within the submucosal layer and it also revealed no submucosal tumor except the polypoid lesion, which was diagnosed to be resected by endoscopic polypectomy with minute morbidity. Subsequently, the lesion was resected endoscopically using conventional polypectomy methods in February 1998. No complications occurred during or after this procedure. Histologically, the resected specimen contained poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma and the cancer cells reached near the vertical cut end (Fig. 4A and B).
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Thereafter, no additional treatment was performed and follow-up endoscopic examination with biopsy and CT scan examination revealed no local progression and no lymph node or distant metastasis. In August 2001, 4 years after initiation of chemoradiotherapy and 3.5 years after endoscopic resection, the patient is alive with no evidence of the disease (Fig. 5A and B).
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DISCUSSION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCASE REPORTDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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Ohtsu et al. previously reported that chemoradiation is effective for locally advanced (T4) esophageal cancer (4). However, malignant fistula to the respiratory tract, the mediastinum and large vessels before and after treatment is a serious complication of locally advanced esophageal cancer. Although radiation has generally been regarded to be contraindicated in patients with a malignant fistula, we previously reported that chemoradiotherapy was effective even for far advanced esophageal cancer with a malignant fistula (5). Several reports indicated that 50–91.7% of pre-treatment malignant fistulae were successfully closed by chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy (5–7).
The present patient had advanced esophageal cancer with the histological type of adenosquamous carcinoma. Since adenosquamous cells are a minority in esophageal cancer, no report has specially mentioned its sensitivity to chemoradiotherapy. In many Western studies showing the efficacy of chemoradiotherapy, only a few patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma were included. These studies have shown comparable sensitivities of adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Hence it is considered that adenosquamous cell carcinoma may show the same sensitivity as squamous or adenocarcinoma of the esophagus.
For patients with esophago-bronchial fistula, esophageal stenting using a covered stent may generally be used to protect the respiratory tract from contamination since insertion of a stent is an easy procedure with low morbidity and no mortality. However, it has been reported that an esophageal stent before or during chemoradiotherapy might migrate to the esophageal wall and surrounding tissues and induce necrosis of the tissues, resulting in enlargement of the fistula or rupture of large vessels (5). Stenting may be regarded as a palliative treatment only for the purpose of occlusion of the fistula and it should be used very carefully along with chemoradiotherapy. Moreover, chemoradiotherapy can provide a chance of cure with closure of the fistula even for the patients with malignant fistula. It seems that chemoradiotherapy may be chosen as a first-line therapy aiming at cure and stenting may be only a palliative therapy. For these reasons, we treated the present case with chemoradiotherapy and the fistula was successfully closed after obtaining marked tumor reduction.
In the present case, because a polypoid lesion with cancer cells remained after the completion of therapy, the effect of the therapy was evaluated as a partial remission. In chemoradiation, complete remission rates for T2–3 and T4 esophageal cancer are as high as 60–70% (1,8,9) and 30–40% (4,10) and local recurrence at the primary site is observed in approximately one third of the cases after obtaining complete remission. Hence local control is another major problem with chemoradiation. Although some authors have reported that the down-staging by preoperative chemoradiotherapy contributes to an increase in the curative resection rate of surgery (8,11,12), several studies of preoperative chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery (CRT-S) indicated no survival benefit compared with surgery alone (11,12). Surgery after definitive chemoradiotherapy including a dose of >50 Gy of radiation appears to have substantial obstacles because of severe fibrosis. Moreover, no second-line chemotherapy has been reported to be effective for local failure after chemoradiation. The present case had had an unresectable esophageal cancer at the initiation of therapy, so salvage surgery could not be an option after the completion of chemoradiotherapy. Thus, the chance of a cure for local failure after chemoradiotherapy seemed very small for the present case.
Endoscopic resection for superficial esophageal cancer is commonly used in Japan (13–15). Endoscopic resection is ordinarily indicated for superficial esophageal cancers within the epithelial or mucosal muscle layer because submucosal esophageal cancer is frequently associated with lymph node metastasis (13–15). At the time of polypectomy for the present case, no indication of endoscopic resection for remnant disease after chemoradiotherapy was determined, and the present case was the first endoscopic resection after chemoradiotherapy in our institution. We performed it with the patient’s informed consent after explaining the following points. First, CT examination showed complete remission of lymph node metastasis and no distant metastasis, suggesting that local control might offer a small chance of cure. Second, since it was a small polyp diagnosed to be limited within the submucosal layer by EUS, it might be resected endoscopically safely with less morbidity although a risk of perforation could not be estimated. Third, endoscopic resection would not affect the subsequent chemotherapy. The present patient seems to be cured since there has been no recurrence for 4 years after initiation of chemoradiotherapy and for ~3.5 years after endoscopic resection.
Since the remnant disease originating from T4 esophageal cancer is generally considered to extend to the deeper portion of the esophageal wall or beyond it, this case seems to be exceptional. However, the present case suggests that endoscopic resection for the remnant disease after chemoradiotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer might offer a small chance of cure, associated with little morbidity. We suggest that endoscopic resection might be tried for some remnant disease after chemoradiation and that its possible indications may be (1) a small elevated lesion without ulceration, (2) diagnosis to be limited within the submucosal layer, (3) confirmation of no metastatic lesion by image diagnosis and (4) the patient’s informed consent. Further study of additional endoscopic resection after chemoradiation for esophageal cancer is warranted.
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FOOTNOTES |
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+ For reprints and all correspondence: Narikazu Boku, Division of Digestive Endoscopy and Gastrointestinal Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, 6–5–1, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8577, Japan. E-mail: nboku@east.ncc.go.jp
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REFERENCES |
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Cooper JS, Guo MD, Herskovic A, Macdonald JS, Martenson JA Jr, Al-Sarraf M, et al. Chemoradiotherapy of locally advanced esophageal cancer: long-term follow-up of a prospective randomized trial (RTOG 85–01). Radiation Therapy Oncology Group. J Am Med Assoc 1999;281:1623–7.
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Received August 9, 2001; accepted November 14, 2001.
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