Perioperative FLOT chemotherapy plus surgery for oligometastatic esophagogastric adenocarcinoma: surgical outcome and overall survival

Abstract

Abstract Background Guidelines do not recommend surgery for patients with oligometastatic disease from esophagogastric adenocarcinoma (EGAC), although some studies suggest a more favorable survival. We analyzed the outcome of oligometastatic EGAC receiving FLOT chemotherapy followed by surgery. Methods The data of patients with either pre-therapeutic, post-neoadjuvant or intraoperative clinical diagnosis of oligometastatic EGAC were extracted from a prospective database of the 2009–2018 treatment period. 48 consecutive patients were identified with oligometastatic disease, who underwent perioperative chemotherapy plus surgery. We retrospectively analyzed surgical outcome and overall survival. Results The overall 5-year survival was 18%. 12 patients (25%) with pre-therapeutic oligometastatic EGAC, who had no histologic vital tumor evidence of metastases after surgery had a survival rate of 48% compared to an 11% 5-year survival rate of 36 patients (75%), who had histologic vital tumor metastatic evidence after FLOT chemotherapy and surgical resection (p = 0.012). The survival rates after R0, R1 and R2 (non-resected metastases) resection were 21% (n = 33), 0% (n = 4) and 17% (n = 11), respectively (p = 0.273). Conclusion Oligometastatic EGAC is associated with poor overall survival even after complete resection of all tumor manifestations. The subgroup of patients with a complete histologic response of metastatic lesions to neoadjuvant FLOT shows 5-year survival rates similar to non-metastatic EGAC. Trial registration Not applicable.