Up to now, definitive radiotherapy was major treatment plan for elderly ESCC patients. However, whether elective elderly patients can obtain survival benefits through chemoradiotherapy is not clear. Thus we design the clinical trail to answer the question.~Three hundred and twenty elderly patients with ESCC would be recruited. There are two stratification factors including 80 years old and lymph node metastasis. The patients in the chemoradiotherapy group were treated with paclitaxel (45mg/m2) and carboplatin (AUC=2) one cycle per week for five cycles.The primary end point was 3-year overall survival (OS). The second end points included life quality, radiation side effects and 3-yr cancer specific survival. The life quality questionnaire included QlQ-C30 and OES-18.
So far, there is no specific clinical guideline for elderly patients (>75 yr) with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Patients with locally advanced ESCC were enrolled and randomly assigned to either definitive radiotherapy group (61.2Gy/34Fx） or the chemoradiotherapy group (50.4Gy/28Fx；Paclitaxel plus carboplatin). The primary end point was 3-year overall survival (OS). The second end points included life quality, radiation side effects and 3-yr cancer specific survival.