Dr Berend Van der Wilk speaks to ecancer about the SANO trial which investigated neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery versus active surveillance for oesophageal cancer.

He explains that a considerable amount of patients with oesophageal cancer have a pathologically complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and oesophagectomy. The study hypothesised that active surveillance can be an alternative for patients with clinically complete response.

The study found that after a follow-up of two years, patients undergoing active surveillance had non-inferior overall survival and improved short-term health related quality of life compared to standard surgery.