Patients with cancer of the oesophagus, also known as the gullet, are often given chemotherapy or radiotherapy, with the aim of shrinking the tumour before it is surgically removed.

Increasingly positron emission tomography (PET) is being used to monitor the size of the tumour during the treatment.

To date, however, no benefit for patients has ensued, as Milly Schröer-Günther and co-authors show in an original article in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 545-52).

PET is an imaging technique that makes a tumour in the oesophagus visible without the patient's having to undergo an invasive examination.

Especially during treatment cycles in which the tumour is supposed to shrink, it makes sense to check the tumour's response to the treatment, but so far no studies exist to show that PET improves the treatment for the patients.

The authors point out that the studies they have analysed have often investigated only a small number of patients or that their results are biased.

Nevertheless, they say, PET carried out early on in treatment does have the potential to identify patients who will not respond to that treatment, and these patients could then be spared continuing treatment with its associated side effects.

To reach this point, however, will require randomised controlled trials.

Source: Deutsches Ärzteblatt International