Surgery is considered to be a standard therapy for stage III or the earlier stage of @entity418 . However, the standard therapy is changing because of the recent advances in the non-surgical approach, especially chemoradiotherapy. Various obstacles remain to estimate the outcomes of combined modality therapy, while the consensus of the treatment for such stage excluding T4 diseases are as follows: 1) Concurrent chemoradiotherapy has a superior outcome to radiation alone in @entity1 with @entity957 . 2) Recent chemoradiotherapy without surgery achieves results comparable to surgery alone. 3) Preoperative chemoradiotherapy can achieve better results than surgery alone in @entity1 with @entity420 . 4) Preoperative chemotherapy is still experimental. Our preliminary results of chemoradiotherapy for @entity418 also showed comparable data to extended surgery in terms of survival. Some significant points to be elucidated regarding combined modalities in stage III or earlier are: 1) the comparison of definitive chemoradiotherapy with Japanese extended surgery, and 2) evaluation of efficacy of surgery after chemoradiotherapy. However, these studies require randomized trials comparing surgery with non-surgical treatment, which appears to present significant obstacles. Critical estimation for each study should be recommended based on accurate clinical staging, biological behavior, and intention-to-treat.

[Current status of combined modality therapy for XXXX : from the standpoint of medical oncology].

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients'] @entity957 :: ('MESH:D002294', 'Disease') :: ['squamous cell carcinoma'] @entity420 :: ('MESH:D000230', 'Disease') :: ['adenocarcinoma'] @entity418 :: ('MESH:D004938', 'Disease') :: ['esophageal cancer']
@entity418 :: (MESH:D004938,Disease) :: ['esophageal cancer']
