Background: Diagnostic endoscopy occasionally shows synchronous early gastric cancer (EGC) and esophageal cancer (EC) in the same patient. The treatment plan for these comorbid cancers is unclear because, as EGC is commonly treated surgically, information on post-chemotherapy outcomes for EGC are lacking, although chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy are important in treating EC. Here, we evaluated whether unresected EGC could be safely observed while synchronous EC is treated with chemotherapy in patients with both cancers.
Methods: We enrolled 30 patients with both EGC and EC who were treated with 5-FU plus cisplatin (FP) from January 2006 to September 2013, and who were evaluated with endoscopy before chemotherapy, and approximately every 3 months afterwards.
Results: The response rate to FP for EGC was 46.8 %. Notably, five cases (16.7 %) had clinically complete responses with no progressive disease. Progression-free survival was 100 % at 6 months and 96.2 % at 1 year. In univariate analysis, FP was significantly more effective for mixed-type and undifferentiated adenocarcinoma than for differentiated adenocarcinoma.
Conclusions: FP was effective for EGC. EGC was stable without progression for more than 6 months while patients underwent FP treatment for EC. We consider observing EGC with no treatment during chemotherapy for EC to be appropriate disease management.
Keywords: 5-FU; Chemotherapy; Cisplatin; Early gastric cancer; Esophageal cancer.