RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. It is not known whether chemotherapy before surgery is more effective than surgery alone in treating cancer of the esophagus. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of surgery with or without chemotherapy in treating patients with stage II or stage III cancer of the esophagus.
OBJECTIVES: I. Compare resectability and survival in patients with stage II/III esophageal cancer treated with neoadjuvant cisplatin/fluorouracil vs. surgery alone. OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are randomized to one of two groups. The first group receives cisplatin and fluorouracil every 4 weeks for 3 courses followed by esophagectomy and regional lymphadenectomy. The second group undergoes esophagectomy and regional lymphadenectomy alone. All patients are followed for survival. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 240 patients will be entered over 4 years.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Enrollment
240
University of Padua
Padua, Italy
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