Clinical analysis of esophageal cancer patients with a history of metachronous primary cancer.

Esophageal cancer (EC) is often associated with multiple primary cancers, and the frequency of EC in patients with a history of metachronous primary cancers (HMPC) was reported as 7.8%. The clinical characteristics of these cases have not yet been elucidated in detail. Therefore, we analyzed 36 EC patients with HMPC among 370 cases that underwent curative resection in our hospital between 1996 and 2013. The most frequent HMPC was gastric cancer (36.1%). The group with HMPC was significantly older than the group without HMPC, whereas no significant differences were observed in other background factors. The stomach was used for reconstruction more frequently reconstructed in the group without HMPC (p<.05). No significant differences were observed in surgical complications between the 2 groups (p=0.283). The 5-year overall survival rates were similar between the groups. The safety of surgery for and prognosis of EC patients with HMPC were similar to those of EC patients without HMPC; therefore, curative surgery should be considered for EC patients with HMPC.