A preliminary study on the consistency between the non-surgical staging and the surgical-pathological staging in oesophageal carcinoma

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the consistency between the clinical staging of non-surgically treated oesophageal carcinoma (preliminary draft) and the surgical-pathological staging of the oesophageal carcinoma. METHODS Comprehensive clinical data from 112 patients with oesophageal cancer were collected from January 2009 to June 2010. Based on the clinical staging standard for oesophageal carcinomas treated with non-surgical methods, the preoperative TNM staging was performed and the results were compared with pTNM. The Kappa statistic was used to analyse the degree of consistency. RESULTS The Kappa values from the T staging, N staging and TNM staging of surgical-pathological results were 0.545, 0.615 and -0.090, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Consistency was observed between the non-surgical T staging and N staging and the postoperative pathological T staging and N staging, but the degree of consistency was only moderate. Additionally, no consistency was observed between the TNM staging results from the two staging systems. Whether the non-surgical staging system can replace the pathological staging system and its significance in evaluating the prognosis remain to be determined.