MEDLINE (1966 to April week 3, 2007), EMBASE (to week 17, 2007), CANCERLIT (1983 to October 2001) and the Cochrane Library (2007, Issue 2) databases were searched with no language restrictions. "Esophageal neoplasms" (Medical subject heading (MeSH)) was combined with "chemotherapy, adjuvant" (MeSH), "radiotherapy, adjuvant" (MeSH), "immunotherapy, adjuvant" (MeSH), and each of the following phrases used as text words: "preoperative", "neoadjuvant", "chemotherapy", "radiotherapy", "radiation therapy", "irradiation", "immunotherapy", "chemoradiotherapy", "chemoradiation", and "hyperthermia". These terms were then combined with the search terms for the following study designs or publication types: practice guidelines, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials (Appendix 2 in the original guideline document). In addition, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (formerly the Physician Data Query [PDQ] database on the Internet [http://www.cancer.gov/search/clinical_trials/]) and the conference proceedings of the 1997 to 2007 annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the 1999 to 2006 annual meetings of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) were searched for reports of new or ongoing trials. Relevant articles and abstracts were reviewed, and the reference lists from these sources were searched for additional trials. This formal search was supplemented with published abstracts from thoracic surgery and oncology conferences, conversations with colleagues and experts in the field, and a review of textbooks related to esophageal oncology.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Articles were selected for inclusion in this systematic review of the evidence if they were fully published reports, published abstracts, or meta-analyses of randomized trials of preoperative or postoperative treatments compared with surgery alone or surgery plus another preoperative or postoperative treatment in patients with resectable and operable thoracic esophageal cancer. Data on survival had to be reported. Other outcomes of interest were adverse effects and quality of life.
Exclusion Criteria
Carcinomas located in the cervical esophagus were excluded.