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J Moons

Publications and source records attributed to J Moons.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Surgical techniques.

Adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) has shown a remarkable increase during recent decades. Most patients are present with advanced stage disease, reflecting transmural growth and metastasis to lymph nodes at the time of diagnosis. Moreover, the pattern of lymph node dissemination is chaotic and difficult to predict, and despite the use of modern technology (e.g., spiral CT, EUS, FDG-PET), clinical staging remains suboptimal. These shortcomings in staging, as well as in different attitudes toward extent of resection and lymphadenectomy, are reflected by a great variation in surgical techniques, which are discussed in this review. As to the results, primary surgery can currently be performed with low mortality, below 5% in high volume centers. Hospital mortality and morbidity are mainly related to pulmonary complications and anastomotic leaks, the latter mostly resolving under conservative treatment. Overall 5-year survival varies between 10% and 59%. As expected the most important prognostic determinants are completeness of resection (R0 vs. R1-R2) and lymph node status (N0, N1). R0 resection currently offers 5-year survival rates of over 40%. Five-year survival figures for node-negative (N0) patients exceed 70%, and even for node-positive (N1), patients reach 25%. It is not known whether performing a three-field lymph node dissection is beneficial for patients with adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus. With overall 5-year survival currently exceeding 30%-40%, these figures should be the gold standard against which all other therapeutic modalities are compared.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed2005

Quality in the surgical treatment of cancer of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction.

Surgical treatment of cancer of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) remains a complex and challenging task. Quality of care may be improved by concentrating these patients in high volume centres in order to decrease post-operative mortality. However, it appears that hospital mortality is a poor tool to measure the quality. More likely specialisation as well as appropriate hospital environment supporting a dedicated multidisciplinary team are key elements in improving both the short term and long term results. The dedicated specialist surgeon has a key role in improving these results through surgical quality. The most important goal in the surgical treatment of these cancers is to perform a complete resection (R0). Data from literature seem to indicate that R0 resection combined with extensive lymphadenectomy are resulting in improved disease free survival and possibly in improved 5 year survival, often reported to exceed 35% after such interventions. These results suggest that there is a great need for standardisation of surgery. Such a standardisation and the resulting improved quality most likely will result in a significant improvement of outcome of esophagectomy for cancer of the esophagus and GEJ. These improvements in outcome should become the gold standard to which all other therapeutic regimens should be compared. Poor surgical quality and related poor results should not be a justification for multimodality regimen.

Disease-Free Survival↗
PubMed2004

Extended surgery for cancer of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction.

The overall prognosis of patients with carcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) remains poor mainly because of the advanced stage of the disease at the time of presentation. As a result, controversy persists over the appropriate extent of surgery. This article reviews the impact of aggressive surgery on staging, disease-free survival, and cure rate. Despite recent advances in staging including positron emission tomography (PET), the findings after aggressive surgery indicate that the overall accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of clinical staging are still too low. These shortcomings in clinical staging therefore question the value of the indications, results, and interpretation of outcomes in multimodality treatment regimens. Extended surgery increases the R(0) resection rate, which seems to have an undeniable beneficial effect on the incidence of locoregional recurrence and which should be considered as a parameter of surgical quality, especially within the context of multimodality trials. As to the effect on cure rate, the only randomized trial with published results did not indicate a significant difference between extended and more limited resections for adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and GEJ, albeit that a subsequent subanalysis did show a significant survival benefit favoring more extended surgery in distal third adenocarcinomas. However, the bulk of current literature suggests that better survival is achieved by more aggressive surgery. For three-field lymphadenectomy the available data suggest a potential survival benefit. It appears that positive cervical lymph nodes in patients with middle or proximal third carcinoma should no longer be considered as M(1a/b) distant lymph node metastasis but rather as N(1) regional disease.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed2004

Three-field lymphadenectomy for carcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction in 174 R0 resections: impact on staging, disease-free survival, and outcome: a plea for adaptation of TNM classification in upper-half esophageal carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of esophagectomy with 3-field lymphadenectomy on staging, disease-free survival, and 5-year survival in patients with carcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ). BACKGROUND: Esophagectomy with 3-field lymphadenectomy is mainly performed in Japan. Data from Western experience with 3-field lymphadenectomy are scarce and dealing with relatively small numbers. As a result, its role in the surgical practice of cancer of the esophagus and GEJ remains controversial. METHODS: Between 1991 and 1999, primary surgery with 3-field lymphadenectomy was performed in 192 patients, of whom a cohort of 174 R0 resections was used for further analysis. RESULTS: Hospital mortality of the whole series was 1.2%. Overall morbidity was 58%. Pulmonary complications occurred in 32.8%, cardiac dysrhythmias in 10.9%, and persistent recurrent nerve problems in 2.6%. pTNM staging was as follows: stage 0, 0.6%; stage I, 9.2%; stage II, 27.6%; stage III, 28.7%; and stage IV, 33.9%. Overall 3- and 5-year survival was 51% and 41.9%, respectively. The 3- and 5-year disease-free survival was 51.4% and 46.3%, respectively. Locoregional lymph node recurrence was 5.2%; no patient developed an isolated cervical lymph node recurrence. Five-year survival for node-negative patients was 80.2% versus 24.5% for node-positive patients. Five-year survival by stage was 100% in stages 0 and I, 59.1% in stage II, 36.8% in stage III, and 13.3% in stage IV. Twenty-three percent of the patients with adenocarcinoma (25.8% distal third and 17.6% GEJ) and 25% of the patients with squamous cell carcinoma (26.2% middle third) had positive cervical nodes resulting in a change of pTNM staging specifically related to the unforeseen cervical lymph node involvement in 12%. Cervical lymph node involvement was unforeseen in 75.6% of patients with cervical nodes at pathologic examinations. Five-year survival for patients with positive cervical nodes was 27.7% for middle third squamous cell carcinoma. For distal third adenocarcinomas, 4-year survival was 35.7% and 5-year survival 11.9%. No GEJ adenocarcinoma with positive cervical nodes survived for 5 years. CONCLUSIONS: Esophagectomy with 3-field lymph node dissection can be performed with low mortality and acceptable morbidity. The prevalence of involved cervical nodes is high, regardless of the type and location of tumor resulting in a change of final staging specifically related to the cervical field in 12% of this series. Overall 5-year and disease-free survival after R0 resection of 41.9% and 46.3%, respectively, may indicate a real survival benefit. A 5-year survival of 27.2% in patients with positive cervical nodes in middle third carcinomas indicates that these nodes should be considered as regional (N1) rather than distant metastasis (M1b) in middle third carcinomas. These patients seem to benefit from a 3-field lymphadenectomy. The role of 3-field lymphadenectomy in distal third adenocarcinoma remains investigational.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed2003

Extracapsular lymph node involvement is a negative prognostic factor in T3 adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus and gastroesophageal junction.

OBJECTIVE: To assess prognosis according to whether lymph node involvement is intracapsular or with extracapsular breakthrough in adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus and gastroesophageal junction. Materials and methods One hundred ninety-five consecutive patients with T3 adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus and gastroesophageal junction between 1990 and 1999 were studied. All patients underwent primary R0 esophagectomy. The mean number of resected nodes per patient was 36.9. Survival was analyzed according to intracapsular and extracapsular involvement. RESULTS: In N0 patients 5-year survival was 57% and 9-year survival was 38.7%. In patients with positive nodes these figures were 26.2% and 18.1%, respectively (P =.0069). Intracapsular and extracapsular node involvement showed 5- and 10-year survival of 40.9% and 21.7% versus 18% and 15.7%, respectively. There was no significant difference in 5- and 10-year survival between N0 and intracapsular node involvement (P =.43). However, there was a significant difference in survival between N0 and extracapsular node involvement (P =.002) and between intracapsular and extracapsular node involvement (P =.0001). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows a significant difference in survival according to whether lymph node involvement was intracapsular or extracapsular. Patients with intracapsular lymph node involvement have similar survival rates as N0 patients. Extracapsular lymph node involvement is a bad prognostic factor, independent of the number of involved lymph nodes. The number of involved lymph nodes has an additive negative effect. These data may have an impact on treatment strategies.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed2001

Optimizing treatment of carcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction.

Overall prognosis in patients with carcinoma of the esophagus and Gastroesophageal junction remains poor mainly because of the late presentation and advanced stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis. Over the last decades, clinical staging has improved, especially since the introduction of CT scan and echo-endoscopy; however, the clinical definition of potential curative tumors still remains unsatisfactory. More recently, the introduction of PET scanning seems to offer better perspective for more precise staging and evaluation of response. In centers with large experience, cure rates today are exceeding 30% after primary surgery. To improve the cure rate, much attention is paid to neoadjuvant multimodality regimens. In resectable tumors, induction therapy offers little or no benefit. In locally advanced tumors especially, the combination of induction chemoradiotherapy results in a complete response in a substantial number of patients. This subset of patients seems to benefit in terms of survival and cure, whereas the others do not. Future research, therefore, needs to focus on early identification of responders (e.g., through molecular biology) and new chemotherapeutic drugs with higher impact on tumor response and fewer side effects.

Adenocarcinoma↗