ArticleAdvances in radiation oncology2025
Survival Benefit of Combined Chemoimmunotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Patients with Recurrent or Metastatic Esophageal Cancer.
Article in Advances in radiation oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Response-adapted perioperative therapy for resectable esophageal cancer in the immunotherapy era: a narrative review.Journal of thoracic disease · 2026Review
- Acquired resistance to first-line immune checkpoint inhibitors in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: progression patterns and prognostic implications.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: Chemotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has become the standard first-line treatment for recurrent or metastatic esophageal cancer, but its efficacy remains suboptimal. This study aimed to evaluate whether the addition of radiation therapy (RT) to ICIs can improve patients' survival. Methods and Materials: This retrospective cohort study analyzed clinical data from 178 patients with recurrent or metastatic esophageal cancer who were treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC between December 2019 and October 2023. Based on their actual treatment regimens, patients were stratified into 2 groups: the chemoimmunotherapy-alone group (ICIs group) and the chemoimmunotherapy combined with RT group (ICIs + RT group). To minimize selection bias, propensity score matching was used to balance baseline characteristics between the groups before comparative analysis. The primary endpoint was overall survival, and the secondary endpoints were progression-free survival and safety. Results: After propensity score matching, 128 patients were selected for the final analysis, with 64 patients in the ICIs + RT group and 64 patients in the ICIs group. The median follow-up time was 11.26 months (95% CI, 7.02-15.32). The median overall survival was 23.71 months in the ICIs + RT group and 13.00 months in the ICIs group (hazard ratio, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.31-0.88; Conclusions: Adding RT can significantly improve survival in patients with recurrent or metastatic esophageal cancer who are treated with chemoimmunotherapy, but further prospective trials are needed for validation.
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Registered trials
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