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Current Status and Prospects of Multimodal Treatment for Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer

A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Therapy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 389

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Kanazawa Medical University Hospital, Kanazawa, Japan
Interests: upper gastrointestinal cancer; esophageal cancer; gastric cancer; esophagogastric junction cancer; chemotherapy; oncology; endoscopic resection; minimally invasive surgery; robotic surgery

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the field of upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer treatment, surgery and adjuvant therapy remain standard, but the optimal treatment is becoming increasingly complex and technical. For patients with advanced cancer, aggressive multimodal treatment is thought to reduce recurrence rates and improve their prognosis. Therefore, the proper understanding and application of multimodal treatment combining chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and minimally invasive surgery is essential to obtain better treatment outcomes.

This Special Issue will focus on the latest technologies used in various multimodal treatments for upper GI cancer and which are expected to improve a poor prognosis. We welcome the submission of the latest original research and comprehensive review articles on all therapies that play a role in the treatment of resectable, locally advanced, metastatic, and recurrent upper GI cancer.

Dr. Koichi Okamoto
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • upper gastrointestinal cancer
  • esophageal cancer
  • gastric cancer
  • esophagogastric junction cancer
  • chemotherapy
  • oncology
  • endoscopic resection
  • minimally invasive surgery
  • robotic surgery

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 3514 KB  
Article
Tertiary Lymphoid Structures Are Associated with Favorable Clinical Outcomes and Negatively Correlated with Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Esophageal Cancer
by Tomoyoshi Kunitomo, Kazuhiro Noma, Noriyuki Nishiwaki, Seitaro Nishimura, Yasushige Takeda, Hijiri Matsumoto, Tatsuya Takahashi, Kento Kawasaki, Masaaki Akai, Naoaki Maeda, Satoru Kikuchi, Shunsuke Tanabe, Toshiaki Ohara, Hiroshi Tazawa, Yasuhiro Shirakawa and Toshiyoshi Fujiwara
Cancers 2025, 17(20), 3351; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers17203351 - 17 Oct 2025
Viewed by 275
Abstract
Background: Esophageal cancer remains a highly aggressive malignant tumor with poor prognosis, despite advances in combination therapies and novel immunotherapies. Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), characterized by densely packed CD20+ B cells in a germinal-center-like structure, have recently been recognized as immune-stimulating components [...] Read more.
Background: Esophageal cancer remains a highly aggressive malignant tumor with poor prognosis, despite advances in combination therapies and novel immunotherapies. Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), characterized by densely packed CD20+ B cells in a germinal-center-like structure, have recently been recognized as immune-stimulating components within the tumor microenvironment. In contrast, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are stromal cells expressing fibroblast-activating protein (FAP) involved in immunosuppression. Methods: In this retrospective study, 124 clinical samples from patients who underwent radical surgery for esophageal cancer at our institute were analyzed. We investigated whether TLSs could serve as a prognostic factor and examined their association with tumor microenvironment factors. Results: The presence of TLSs was an independent prognostic factor for overall and progression-free survival in multivariate analyses. A high level of TLS formation correlated with better nutritional status, fewer M2 macrophages, and greater plasma cell infiltration. Additionally, little TLS formation was observed in areas with abundant CAFs, and quantitative analyses revealed a significant negative correlation between TLSs and CAFs. Conclusions: TLSs enhance antitumor immunity via macrophages and plasma cells and can be a valuable prognostic indicator in patients undergoing surgery for esophageal cancer. Targeting CAFs may prove to be a promising therapeutic strategy to enhance tumor-immunity-related TLSs. Full article
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