BMJ 1994;309:125-126 (9 July)

Letters

Treatment of oesophageal cancer

Prognosis is not uniformly bad

EDITOR,--We agree with Seamus O'Reilly and Arlene Forastiere that surgery remains the standard treatment for resectable oesophageal cancer, but we do not agree that the outlook in such cases is almost hopeless.1 The review of Earlam and Cunha-Melo spanned two decades of all types of practice, and the latest paper in that review was published 16 years ago. This review is now of only historic interest and should not be quoted as a reflection of modern practice. Nor do we agree that most patients have metastases by the time they present. The paper quoted in support of this statement was a necropsy study, which would have been biased in that direction.

Last year we saw 102 new patients with oesophageal cancer in our unit. Sixty two were secondary referrals from consultants and 40 were primary referrals from family doctors. Eighty eight patients were explored with . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

New approaches to treating oesophageal cancer
S O'Reilly and A Forastiere
BMJ 1994 308: 1249-1250. [Extract] [Full Text]

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