Oesophageal Cancer - Chemo & radiotherapy only or the operation as well

Hi I didn’t have chemo just straight in for op and felt exactly how you have described. I’m 6 days post op sitting in a hospital chair sipping mushroom soup. Biggest tip take it a day at a time as everyday gets better I can’t believe I am sat here listening to my surgeon talking about me going home in the next few days . Truest your team they will look after you

I had chemo then op,  I got pneumonia in there so was in intensive care but I can honestly say I was never realing in pain they had it covered soon as it come on never had any discomfort from the stomach- asophagus join . when I started sipping water 30ml at a time I expected some discomfort but none , progressed small tea , small coffee , two little tubs of ice cream then soups as the days went on and build up shakes ( i only liked these cold , for me chocolate and banana the best but I still drank strawberry and vanilla. Defo like someone said get in that chair some nights I couldn't get comfortable so spent the night in the chair and try to do some walking they will have someone help you but it will pay off , get them lungs moving ya blood pumping and it will aid your recovery all the physio therapists told me this . If you have the opp youve got this they tell you all the if and s buts they have to and we can read and read till will scare the crap out of ourselves..ive done that also , but like I say youve got this . And to the other person sitting in the chair post opp wel done I got home last week im missing foods down walking round town hardly taking pain relief still got the end of this cough but feel great ....love to you all 

Dear Arwen

Statistically, it depends on your type of tumour how sucessful chemo/radiotherapy will be at curing your cancer.  If it is squamous cell there are data to support definitive chemo/radiation as an effective cure.

If it is adenocarcinoma I could not find any convincing evidence before, during or since my treatment that this regime is an effective cure. I did ask my oncologist on every visit. The figures given to me were 30% cure, 30% partial response with recurrence and the rest non-responders. These figures were taken from papers that looked at combined squamous cell and adenocarcinoma data with very few patients having adenocarcinoma. She did assure me she did know of patients with adenocarcinoma who were cured by chemoradiotherapy but as I say I have never seen a publication of this.

I was given a big steer away from the operation on the basis of quality of life, I was told I could just get on with my life after having chemoradiotherapy. The other big steer was that cure rates for surgery and chemoradiotherapy were not that different (15% better for surgery) and recurrence rates were about the same. Not that I was a candidate for surgery anyway so perhaps the steer given by the MDT is tailored to the patient.

My advice is to find out if you do not know already what type of tumour you have.

best of luck x

I want to thank everyone for their replies and it does help to have people who understand