The Role of Radiation in Multimodality Therapy for Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer is one of the commonest malignancies with an increasing incidence, surgery is view as the standard of care, but satisfied survival figure is noted only in very early stage disease. For most of the patients presenting with advanced disease, curative treatment remains to be a challenge. Radiotherapy as curative and palliative approaches for esophageal cancer is widely used, and improved local control and survival were achieved by adding chemotherapy. Multimodality therapy including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy is increasingly considered a promising strategy, an evidence-based review of the role of radiation in the treatment of esophageal cancer is hereby presented.