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Review
. 2025 Jul;22(3):279-288.
doi: 10.1007/s10388-025-01117-8. Epub 2025 Mar 29.

Nutritional management during chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer

Yutaka Kimura  1 , Atsushi Gakuhara  2 , Shuichi Fukuda  2 , Yasunari Fukuda  2 , Terukazu Yoshihara  2 , Chikato Koga  2 , Naotsugu Haraguchi  2 , Jin-Ichi Hida  2
Affiliations
Review

Nutritional management during chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer

Yutaka Kimura et al. Esophagus. 2025 Jul.

Abstract

Advanced esophageal cancer is treated by chemotherapy, radiation therapy, chemoradiotherapy, and immunotherapy. However, the stenosis caused by the tumor and cancer-related chronic inflammation leads to inadequate food intake, weight loss, and nutrition problems. Given that poor pre-treatment nutritional status increases the risks of treatment-related adverse events and a poor prognosis, the nutrition guidelines recommend a pre-treatment nutritional assessment. When malnutrition is present, nutritional interventions, such as dietary guidance and enteral nutrition supplements, provided by the medical team may reduce treatment-related adverse events. However, whether nutritional intervention improves the prognosis is a topic for future research, including randomized controlled trials. This review discusses the literature on nutritional management in patients undergoing chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer.

Keywords: Advanced esophageal cancer; Chemoradiation; Chemotherapy; Nutritional assessment; Nutritional intervention.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval: Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional review and ethics board. Conflict of interest: Y. Ki. has received grants and personal fees from Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., none of which are related to the present article. The remaining authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Nutrition and the prognosis in patients with advanced esophageal cancer
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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