The impact of the chemoradiation to surgery interval on pathological complete response: Short and long-term overall survival in esophageal cancer patients.

2Background: The association of the interval between neoadjuvant chemo-radiation and surgery (CRT-S), and cancer outcomes in patients with esophageal cancer is not clear. We aimed to determine the relationship between CRT-S interval and pathological complete response rate (pCR), short and long overall survival (OS). Methods: Patients listed on the National Cancer Data Base from 2004 to 2013 were studied. We included patients with CRT followed by surgery in 15-90 days. All patients had reported pT, pN cancer stages and survival status. CRT-S interval was studied as continuous (weeks) and categorical variables (quintiles). Results: A total of 5181 patients were included; 81% were adenocarcinomas, 84% were males and mean age was 62 years. They were divided into CRT-S interval quintiles (15 to 37, 38 to 45, 46 to 53, 54 to 64 and 65 to 90 days) (n = 1016, 1063, 1081, 1083 and 938 patients), respectively. There was a significant increase of pCR rate across the CRT-S quintiles (18%, 21%, 24%, 25% and 29%, p < 0...