Radiotherapy of gastroesophageal junction cancer

Abstract

Adenocarcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) require multimodal treatment approaches to accomplish good local control and overall survival. While early T1/2 N0 tumors are treated with surgery alone, they are only found in a small subset of patients due to the lack of symptoms at this stage. Most of the tumors are detected in locally advanced stage where surgery alone results in disappointing outcome. Chemotherapy and/or chemoirradiation in the neoadjuvant setting are used to improve conditions for oncological surgery. They aim to achieve a downsizing with a pathological complete remission in the optimal case, improve R0 rates, and upfront treat microscopic metastatic tumor cells. The optimal neoadjuvant treatment approach - chemotherapy, chemoirradiation, or a multiphase approach of both - is yet unclear. Chemoirradiation can improve local control after incomplete surgery and is an important option for patients unfit for surgery. In addition, it enables symptom relief in a palliative setting, namely dysphagia, pain, or bleeding. While target volumes are very much standardized, new technologies as image-guided intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IG-IMRT) and particle therapy have the potential to improve the therapeutic window by minimizing toxicity. Challenges of the present and the future will be the combination of radiotherapy with other cytostatic drugs and modern targeted therapies. This should ideally be integrated into a multimodal setting that is able to identify risk groups according to predictive markers and tumor response, altogether leading to a personalized oncological approach. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.