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198 active trials for Esophageal Cancer

Observation Study of Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Esophageal Cancer Treated With Chemo-Radiation Followed by Surgery

Patients on this observation study must have planned treatment regimen with concurrent CRT followed by planned surgery, which is considered as standard of care for their disease. The total radiation dose will be 50.4 Gy in daily fraction of 1.8 Gy for esophageal cancer and 60 Gy in daily fraction of 2 Gy for non-small cell lung cancer. The concurrent chemo regimen will carboplatin-paclitaxel managed by the treating medical oncologist. Patients are planned to receive surgery at approximately 6 to 9 weeks (maximum 12 weeks post-CRT) after finishing CRT with surgical aspects determined by the treating surgical oncologist. Patients on this observation study will donate their blood samples within 4 weeks before initiating CRT, within 1 week before completing CRT, 1 month after CRT, and 1 month after surgery (or 3 months after CRT if surgery is not done for any reason). They are also requested to fill out questionnaires (EORTC QLQ-30, EORTC QLQ-OES18, and Pain Scale as attached) prior to CRT, weekly during CRT, 1 month after CRT, 1 month after surgery (or 3 months after CRT if surgery is not done for any reason), and 6 months after CRT. Any patients with incomplete treatment will have samples collected up to the point where they discontinue. The specimen collection, handling and processing will be done by Protocol Support Lab (PSL) at Fox Chase Cancer Center under the directions of the Director, R. Katherine Alpaugh, PhD, following the procedures outlined in PSL lab manual. The patients in this observation study will be asked to donate a tissue specimen after the definitive surgery for investigation.

Start: February 2017
Prehabilitation on Fitness, Surgical Outcomes and Mitochondria Functionality in Patients With Esophageal Cancer

The most often reported complications of patients with resectable esophageal malignancies are pulmonary (25~57%), which may cause increased intensive care unit utilization, prolonged length of hospital stay, increased mortality and medical expense. Also, neoadjuvant chemotherapy has a deleterious effect on patients' cardiopulmonary capacity, strength and muscle mass. Prehabilitation includes preoperative exercise training and nutrition management. The reporting outcome regarding whether it improves surgical outcomes is inconsistent. One of the reasons is that pulmonary complication tends to occur in patients with low cardiopulmonary fitness, but all studies included patients with all level of fitness. Most of the chemotherapy interferes with cell division to inhibit tumor growth but is also harmful to mitochondria functionality. For example, Cisplatin and Paclitaxel, commonly used in esophageal cancer, alter mitochondria function, caused by disruption of respiratory chain function and increased production of reactive oxygen species. However, it remains unclear their negative effects on the oxidative phosphorylation capacity of mitochondria (OXPHOS). Furthermore, whether prehabilitation reverses this negative effect is scarcely explored. Patients will be inquired to participate and randomized into prehabilitation or control group. The latter will undergo conventional therapy only, while the former will receive additional prehabilitation program. The prehabilitation program encompasses supervised and home-based aerobic, resistance training (large and inspiratory muscle) and nutrition management. The supervised exercise training will be performed right before or after the radiotherapy. Outcome variables are fitness-related testing [the 1st year], quality of life and surgical outcomes [the 2nd year] and mitochondria functionality (OXPHOS, membrane potential, matrix oxidant burden) [the 3rd year]. Evaluation is performed 3 times at baseline, before surgery and 4 weeks after surgery.

Start: February 2020
Preoperative Image-guided Identification of Response to Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Esophageal Cancer

Rationale: For locally advanced esophageal cancer the standard treatment consists of 5 weeks of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) followed by surgery. Surgery is currently performed independent of the response to nCRT and is associated with substantial morbidity. Prior knowledge of the eventual response to nCRT would greatly impact on the optimal care for many esophageal cancer patients for two imperative reasons: Firstly, it is argued that patients who achieved a pathologic complete response (pCR, 29%) may not have benefitted from surgery. Consequently, proper identification of pathological complete responders prior to surgery could yield an organ-preserving regimen avoiding unnecessary toxicity. Secondly, non-responders are exposed to the side effects of nCRT without showing any tumor regression. Early identification of the non-responders during nCRT would be beneficial for this group as ineffective therapy could be stopped, and for who altered treatment strategies could be explored. Objective: To develop a multimodal model that predicts the probability of pathologic complete response to nCRT in esophageal cancer, by integrating diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) and dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in conjunction with combined 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and computed tomography (18F-FDG PET-CT) scans acquired prior to, during and after administration of nCRT. Study design: Multi-center observational study Study population: Patients (>18 years) with potentially resectable locally advanced squamous cell- or adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastroesophageal junction, receiving nCRT prior to surgery. Intervention: In addition to the standard diagnostic work-up for esophageal cancer that includes a 18F-FDG PET-CT scan at diagnosis and after nCRT, one 18F-FDG PET-CT scans will be performed during nCRT, as well as three MRI scans (before, during and after nCRT) within fixed time intervals. Furthermore, after response imaging after nCRT has been performed, but prior to surgery, patients will undergo (on an opt-out basis) an endoscopy and/or endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) with biopsies of the primary tumor site, other suspected lesions and suspected lymph nodes. Furthermore, blood samples will be collected at three time points. Main study parameters/endpoints: An accurate multimodal prediction model for the patients' individual probability of pathologic complete response after nCRT, based on the quantitative parameters derived from a longitudinal series of DW-MRI, DCE-MRI and 18F-FDG PET-CT datasets.

Start: April 2018