Long-term trends in the clinical management and outcomes of patients with gastroesophageal cancer in Norway

The cohort included 14,334 Norwegian patients with gastroesophageal cancer; predominantly male, mean age 69-73 years, with a median follow-up of 9-11 months across cancer subtypes. Approximately 40% of patients received curative treatment, and multi-modality treatments increased for EAC, GEJC, and ESCC. Median survival ranged from 6 to 11 months for patients treated palliatively, and 17-95 months for those treated with curative intent. Interestingly, median survival was higher for patients with EAC and GEJC treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (86.1 and 75.1 months) versus neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (49.1 and 42.1 months), which was confirmed by a multivariate Cox regression model adjusted for age, sex, and disease stage. This study demonstrates that multimodal treatment strategies, consisting of chemotherapy and surgery, may be associated with improved survival outcomes for gastroesophageal cancers. Future studies are required to identify optimum treatment strategies for gastroesophageal cancer subtypes.