Successful outcome after combined chemotherapeutic and surgical management in a case of esophageal cancer with breast and brain relapse

Esophageal cancer (EC) is a highly lethal disease. Approximately 50% of patients present with metastatic EC and most patients with localized EC will have local recurrence or develop metastases, despite potentially curative local therapy. The most common sites of distant recurrence are represented by lung, liver and bone while brain and breast metastases are rare. Usually patients with advanced disease are not treated aggressively and their median survival is six months. We report a woman patient who developed breast and brain metastases after curative surgery. We treated her with a highly aggressive chemotherapeutic and surgical combination resulting in a complete remission of the disease even after 11-year follow-up. We think that in super selected patients with more than one metastasis, when functional status is good and metastases are technically resectable, a surgical excision may be considered as a salvage option and chemotherapy should be delivered to allow a systemic control. (C) 2006 The WJG Press. All rights reserved.