Impact of Different Histopathological Factors on Recurrence and Survival in Operated Carcinoma Esophagus

Abstract Background  Even with radical surgery, a significant percentage of patients of esophageal cancer experience recurrent disease. Aims  The aim of the current study is to define the impact of different histopathological factors on the recurrence and survival in carcinoma esophagus following surgery. Materials and Methods  A retrospective review of 182 patients of esophageal carcinoma, operated between January 2011 and December 2016, was done. In our study, 92 patients underwent upfront surgery and 90 took neo-adjuvant/perioperative treatment before planned surgery. To compare the proportion between two groups, chi-square test was used and to compare the median between the two groups, Mann—Whitney U test was used. Factors affecting the survival were analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier survival curve to compare the median survival time across groups log rank (Mantel–Cox) test was used. Results  Out of 182 patients, 55 patients developed recurrences, in which 19 were loco-regional and 36 were systemic. Patients with lymph node-positive disease on final histopathology had more recurrence than lymph node-negative (39.74%, 31/78) versus (23%, 24/104), p  = 0.01 (significant). Patients with features such as PNI-positive, poor differentiation, lymph node-positive, ENE, and higher stage disease had statistically significant, lower DFS and OS with p -value < 0.05. Patients with adenocarcinoma histology had more systemic recurrences and statistically significant lower DFS than SCC with p -value < 0.05. Conclusions  Systemic recurrences are more common. PNI, ENE, grade, lymph node-positive disease, and higher pathologic stage had statistically significant negative impact on both DFS and OS. On multivariate analysis, whereas ENE had an impact on DFS alone.