RESEARCH ARTICLE A Meta-Analysis of Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy for Advanced Esophageal Cancer

Background Concurrent chemoradiotherapy is a standard treatment for local advanced esophageal can-cer, but the outcomes are controversial. Our goals were to compare the therapeutic effects of concurrent chemoradiotherapy and radiotherapy alone in local advanced esophageal cancer using meta-analysis. Methods MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane library were searched for studies comparing che-moradiotherapy with radiotherapy alone for advanced esophageal cancer. Only randomized controlled trials were included, and extracted data were analyzed with Review Manager Version 5.2. The pooled relative risks (RR) and their 95 % confidence intervals (CI) were cal-culated for statistical analysis. Results Nine studies were included. Of 1,135 cases, 612 received concurrent chemoradiotherapy and 523 were treated with radiotherapy alone. The overall response rate (complete remis