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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2015; 7(1): 1-5
Published online Jan 15, 2015. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v7.i1.1
Role of radiotherapy in the pre-operative management of carcinoma of the esophagus
Bryan H Burmeister
Bryan H Burmeister, Division of Cancer Services, Princess Alexandra Hospital, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4012, Australia
Author contributions: Burmeister BH solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: I have no other conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Bryan H Burmeister, MD, Division of Cancer Services, Princess Alexandra Hospital, University of Queensland, 199 Ipswich Road, Brisbane 4102, Australia. bryan.burmeister@health.qld.gov.au
Telephone: +61-7-31766581 Fax: +61-7-31761983
Received: June 30, 2014
Peer-review started: June 30, 2014
First decision: October 28, 2014
Revised: December 16, 2014
Accepted: December 29, 2014
Article in press: December 31, 2014
Published online: January 15, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: This review describes the history and develop-ment of radiotherapy in the pre-operative setting for resectable esophageal cancer. In particular it focuses on data from multicenter phase II and phase III trials as well as meta-analyses from across the world. The review concludes with a discussion about the role of new radiation technologies in the management of esophageal cancer.