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Research

Small cell carcinoma of the oesophagus: experience of an Indian Tertiary Cancer Centre

19 May 2022
Goutam Santosh Panda, Vanita Noronha, Subhash Yadav, Amit Joshi, Vijay Patil, Nandini Menon, Rajiv Kumar, Amit Janu, Abhishek Mahajan, Nilendu Purandare, Jai Prakash Agarwal, George Karimundackal, Kumar Prabhash

Introduction: Small cell carcinoma of the oesophagus (SCCE) is a rare and aggressive tumour with no established standard treatment.

Methods: This is a retrospective study of adult patients with histologically proven SCCE registered between February 2011 and March 2020 at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai.

Results: There were 56 patients, with 29 (51.8%) having limited-stage disease (LD) and 27 (48.2%) having extensive-stage disease (ED). The median age was 58 (interquartile range = 51–65) years; 57.1% were men; and 40% were smokers. Among LD-SCCE patients, 23 underwent local therapy, i.e., radiation (19, 65.5%) and surgery (4, 13.8%), and 27 received chemotherapy in neoadjuvant (23, 79.3%), concurrent (18, 62.1%) and adjuvant (4, 13.8%) settings. Totally, 19 ED-SCCE patients (70.4%) received chemotherapy. Prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) was delivered to 11 (37.9%) and 7 (25.9%) patients with LD-SCCE and ED-SCCE, respectively. Significant grade 3 or more chemotoxicities in patients with LD-SCCE and ED-SCCE included febrile neutropenia in 33.3% and 23.5%, anaemia in 9.5% and 17.6%, and dyselectrolytemia in 14.3% and 11.8%, respectively. The median overall survival (OS) in LD-SCCE and ED-SCCE was 22.9 (95% CI = 1.8–44.1) months and 11.8 (95% CI = 7.3–16.4) months, respectively. Age <60 years (p = 0.004) and tumour epicentre in the lower third oesophagus (p = 0.002) were independent good prognostic factors for OS in LD-SCCE and ED-SCCE patients, respectively. The incidence of brain metastasis was low, at both presentation (1/27, 3.7%) and relapse (5/56, 8.9%).

Conclusion: Although the survival of LD-SCCE is better than ED-SCCE, it is still under 2 years. Brain metastases are uncommon and the role of PCI is uncertain.

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