Survival of patients after stent placement and chemotherapy in the treatment of esophageal cancer: A literature review

Esophageal cancer is a disease that has a high mortality rate, and its main symptom is dysphagia, potentially requiring a stent placement. The performance of this patients is usually poor and we aim of this study is to analyze the survival of patients who underwent stent placement and chemotherapy. An integrative literature review in the National Library of Medicine and Cochrane Library databases was performed, using the descriptors “esophageal cancer” or “esophageal neoplasm” and “stent” and “chemotherapy”. Inclusion criteria were randomized and non-randomized clinical trials, between 1996 and 2022. Ten studies were included and information on the number of patients evaluated, tumor staging, histological subtypes and treatments prior to stent placement were gathered. The studies were heterogeneous and a systematic comparison was not possible, however there was a trend in patients who received systemic treatment +/- radiotherapy to have longer survival than patient which did not receive systemic treatment. Moreover, most studies report a small number of participants, and unparalleled comparisons. We concluded that survival data for patients who received stents and chemotherapy are scarce but this approach is possible for fit patients.