Conebeam CT-based Online Adaptive Radio-Therapy for Esophageal Cancer (ARTEC)
Despite multimodal therapy, patients with esophageal cancer have poor prognosis with 5-year overall survival around 25%. Considering tumor-related death as main reason for high mortality rate in those patients, treatment-related cardio-pulmonary toxicities could also play a role in this regard. Online adaptive radiotherapy offers the possibility for daily re-planning and therefore helps radiation oncologists to better spare the organs at risk and reduce radiation-induced toxicity. Tha aim of ARTEC is to assess the pulmonary toxicity in patients with esophageal cancer treated with online adaptive radiotherapy.
• Written informed consent
• Histologically confirmed diagnosis of AC (Adenocarcinoma) or SCC (squamos cell carcinoma) of the thoracic esophagus or gastroesophageal junction (Siewert I-II)
• Patients with cT2-4b cN0 cM0 or cTany cN+ cM0 or any patient with early stage EC ineligible for upfront surgery
• Age \>= 18 years old
• Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) \>= 70 or ECOG (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group) 0 - 1
• Absence of any psychological, familial, sociological or geographical condition potentially hampering compliance with the study protocol and follow-up schedule; those conditions should be discussed with patients before registration in the trial