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The present study investigated the treatment and survival outcomes of patients with synchronous primary esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and gastric adenocarcinoma. The medical records of 10,783 patients with primary esophageal squamous cancer treated at our institution between 1995 and 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. Overall survival (OS) rates were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The incidence was 0.38% (41/10,783). Of these 41 patients, 26 underwent curative surgery, ten received palliative chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and five received no treatment. The median OS of the surgery, palliative-therapy, and treatment-free groups was 17.1, 9.0, and 3.8 months, respectively. The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year OS rates for the surgery group were 77%, 45%, 33%, and 19%, respectively. No significant differences in median OS were observed between the surgery group and the historical cohort of isolated esophageal cancer (n = 186) (17.1 vs. 21.0 months, P = 0.061) or isolated gastric cancer (n = 51) (17.1 vs. 28.9 months, P = 0.875), or between the palliative-therapy group and its corresponding historical cohort (n = 30) (9.0 vs. 8.3 months, P = 0.862). The survival outcomes of patients with synchronous primary esophageal squamous and gastric cancers were not worse than those of patients with isolated esophageal cancer or isolated gastric cancer.

We performed a phase II trial of docetaxel in combination with capecitabine to evaluate the antitumor response, toxicity, and survival in pre-treated patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma who had failed first-line chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil were enrolled in this study. Treatment consisted of oral capecitabine (825 mg/m(2) twice daily on days 1-14) plus 1-h intravenous docetaxel (60 mg/m(2) on day 1) every 3 weeks for up to 6 cycles. Between June 2008 and August 2011, thirty eligible patients with a median age of 58 years (range 38-68 years) were enrolled. Patients received a median of three cycles of treatment (range 1-6). The median follow-up was 15.4 months (range 1.0-31.5 months). Intent-to-treat efficacy analysis demonstrated an overall response rate of 23.3% (0 complete response and 7 partial response) and stable disease of 43.4 % (n = 13). The median time to progression was 3.0 months (95% CI 1.9-4.1 months). The median survival was 8.3 months (95% CI 6.8-9.8 months). Severe adverse events (grade 3/4) reported were as follows: neutropenia (33.3%, n = 10, including febrile neutropenia 6.7%, n = 2), anemia (16.7%, n = 5), thrombocytopenia (10 %, n = 3), hand-foot syndrome (13.3%, n = 4), and fatigue (10%, n = 3). Docetaxel plus capecitabine had a manageable adverse event profile and promising activity in advance esophageal squamous cell carcinoma as a second-line treatment.