Profile of Patients with Esophageal Cancer Diagnosed Between 2001 and 2010 in Brazil

Abstract

Introduction: Esophageal cancer is the third most common neoplasm of the digestive tract and presents poor prognosis when diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease. Objective: To describe the socio-demographic, clinical and treatment characteristics of patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer in Brazil, from 2001 to 2010. Method: A cross-sectional study of patients with esophageal cancer registered between 2001 and 2010 in Hospital-based registries. Socio-demographic, clinical and treatment variables were analyzed. Descriptive analysis was performed using mean and standard deviation for continuous variables, and absolute and relative frequency for categorical variables. Results: A total of 24,204 patients were included, with a mean age of 60.8 years (± 11.5). The majority of the population was male (78.3%), with a low level of schooling (75.2%), alcoholics (62.9%), smokers (76.0%), and had an advanced stage of diagnosis (41.3% in clinical stage III and 26.9% in stage IV), the topographic group being the most prevalent was in the esophagus upper and middle (76.4%). 12.7% of the patients were not submitted to any cancer treatment. The most frequent treatments were the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy (25.6%), and treatment alone with radiotherapy (21.9%). At the end of the first cancer treatment, 10.7% had no evidence of disease, 8.4% had partial remission, 26.6% had a stable disease, and the remaining patients had progression or death (54.4%). Conclusion: In Brazil, the cases diagnosed for esophageal cancer are mostly diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease, which represents greater therapeutic aggressiveness and worse response to treatment.