Local treatment improves the outcomes for oligometastatic disease, an intermediate state between locoregional and widespread disease. However, consensus about the definition, diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic oesophagogastric cancer is lacking. The first edition "Definition, diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic oesophagogastric cancer: A Delphi consensus study in Europe" was published on February 15, 2023 by 65 European medical specialists. In this article, the consensus will be interpreted to provide new idea for the diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic oesophagogastric cancer for Chinese clinicians.
In recent years, with the clinical application of minimally invasive surgical techniques and comprehensive preoperative treatment, the survival rate of locally advanced esophageal cancer has significantly improved. However, the treatment of metastatic esophagogastric cancer still relies mainly on systemic therapy, and immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy has become a first-line treatment option, prolonging the survival of patients with metastatic esophageal cancer. Oligometastatic esophageal cancer is expected to bring survival benefits through systemic therapy combined with local treatment. The 2024 European clinical practice guidelines for oligometastatic esophagogastric cancer have been officially released, which standardize the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of oligometastatic esophageal cancer for further prospective studies. The authors interpret this guideline, especially by reviewing the clinical evidence of oligometastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, to provide reference for the diagnosis and treatment of oligometastatic esophageal cancer in China.
The new effective systemic treatment strategy has "created" many long-term stage Ⅳ non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survivors, and surgeons should pay attention to those individual ineffective lesions of long-term survivors. Besides, the new effective systemic treatment strategy may have changed the original concept and population of oligometasis. To intervene the oligo-progression lesions of long-term stage Ⅳ survivors, particularly after effective systemic treatment, at appropriate time with appropriate way might be the main task of surgery in the future.
Advanced driver gene-negative non-small cell lung cancer is generally considered incurable, and treatment aims to prolong patient survival. Recently, however, a new definition “oligometastasis” has been proposed, which refers to the appearance of no more than 5 metastatic lesions in up to 3 different organs. The emergence of this concept has changed the traditional treatment model. Many studies have shown that standard systemic therapy combined with local therapy (radiotherapy, surgery, thermal ablation, etc.) can effectively prolong the survival time of these patients. This article reviews the clinical studies on the efficacy, toxicity, and beneficiary population of local radiotherapy combined with systemic therapy in driver gene-negative oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer, and provides further reference for clinical decision-making.
