Background & objective: Although adjuvant chemo-therapy is a component of combined therapy for esophageal cancer, whether it can effectively improve the survival rate remains controversial. This study was to evaluate the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy on advanced localized esophageal carcinoma after radical surgery.
Methods: Randomized clinical studies on surgery plus chemotherapy and surgery alone for patients with localized esophageal carcinoma from Jan. 1995 to Jun. 2005 were selected from CBMDisc, CNKI, and PubMed databases. RevMan4.2 software was used for meta-analysis.
Results: Seven reports were included in the meta-analysis and a total of 864 patients had been included. Compared with that of the patients underwent surgery alone, the 3-year survival rate of the patients underwent surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy was significantly elevated, with the combined relative risk (RRs) of 0.83 (P=0.009, 95% confidence interval = 0.71-0.95).
Conclusion: Postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy can improve the 3-year survival rate of the patients with esophageal carcinoma.