ASO Author Reflections: Multimodal Treatment, Including Surgery, for Patients with Resectable M1 Lymph Node Metastases Without Organ Metastasis in Esophageal Carcinoma Showed Promising Prognosis

Excerpt

Stage IVB disease represents cancer progression beyond localized disease and requires systemic therapy with a poor prognosis; however, stage IVB disease is extremely heterogeneous. Oligometastasis is defined as a state of limited metastatic disease, ¹ and evidence suggests that patients with a limited number of metastatic lesions tend to have a more favorable prognosis compared with those with more widespread metastatic lesions. Locoregional control of oligometastatic metastases by surgery is reported to be beneficial in selected patients. Recent analyses indicated that patients with stage IVB esophageal cancer who have nonregional lymph node (M1LN) metastases as the only metastatic site have a better prognosis compared with patients with more widespread metastases. ² However, M1LN metastases cases are excluded from surgery and the significance of its resection is unknown. We investigated whether surgical resection of M1LN metastases in esophageal carcinoma results in favorable patient outcomes. …