Gene expression analysis of pretreatment biopsies predicts the pathological response of esophageal squamous cell carcinomas to neo-chemoradiotherapy

Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (neo-CRT) followed by surgery has been shown to improve esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients' survival compared with surgery alone. However, the outcomes of CRT are heterogeneous, and no clinical or pathological method can currently predict CRT response. In this study, we aim to identify mRNA markers useful for ESCC CRT-response prediction.