Esophageal Cancer

Dr. Krasna provides a thoughtful review of thoracoscopy as an emerging technique for the staging of patients with lung and esophageal cancers. In lung cancer, thoracoscopy can be used as a complement to cervical mediastinoscopy in the evaluation of mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes. This is especially true in patients who have left-sided neoplasms with enlarged lymph nodes in the aortico-pulmonary window--a region typically inaccessible to cervical mediastinoscopy.

Dr. Krasna provides a well-illustrated review of the applications of thoracoscopy in lung and esophageal tumors. These include: staging of tumors; diagnosis of indeterminate pulmonary nodules; definitive resections of various tumors, especially in cases of poor reserve; and diagnosis and treatment of malignant pleural disease [1]. However, there remains considerable disagreement among thoracic surgical oncologists over the proper applications of these techniques.

Staging is extremely important in determining the proper treatment of patients with thoracic malignancies. Staging groups can be used to predict outcome after cancer treatment and allocate patients to appropriate treatment

WASHINGTON--The FDA has approved QLT PhotoTherapeutics' light-activated drug Photofrin (porfimer sodium) for the palliative treatment of esophageal constriction in patients with advanced esophageal cancer.

African-Americans and Caucasians who have the same type of esophageal cancer and receive the same quality of treatment have a similar survival rate, preliminary results of a national study show.