Globally, the two countries with the highest 5-year survival rates for esophageal cancer are Japan and South Korea, at 36% and 31.3%, respectively, and developed countries such as Europe and the United States, mostly at 10% to 20% . Happily, China has made tremendous progress in the treatment of esophageal cancer, with the 5-year survival rate rising from 20.9% in 2003 to 30.3% today .
Treatment options vary by country
Patients with esophageal cancer in China are characterized by the type of esophageal squamous carcinoma that predominates; whereas in Europe and the United States, adenocarcinoma predominates, and their experience and surgical volume in treating esophageal squamous carcinoma is much less than in China.
The main reason for the high survival rate of esophageal cancer in Japan and Korea is the good work done in early screening. Both countries have implemented an endoscopic screening policy that allows early screening of a proportion of patients with early esophageal cancer. Unfortunately, however, they still have limited treatment options for progressive or advanced esophageal cancer.
In addition, although esophageal squamous carcinoma is the predominant subtype in China, Japan, and Korea, patients in Japan and Korea are also more or less different from China at the epidemiologic and genomic levels. Therefore, each country’s esophageal cancer treatment guidelines are tailored to the characteristics of patients in that country only.
To summarize,the current international progress on esophageal cancer treatment is slow and no new effective protocols have emerged, while the level of treatment in China is hardly different from that in other countries. In such a situation, we recommend that you, instead, seek consultation and treatment in a regular hospital in China.
So, is it possible to go abroad for medical treatment with the latest drugs?
No.
Not really.
None of the targeted or immunotherapy drugs are currently approved for esophageal squamous cancer, and the same is true abroad.
That means that even if you go abroad for medical care and want to get the latest drug treatments, you have to participate in clinical trials of these drugs and cannot buy them directly or use them in routine hospital visits.