Successful multimodal therapy for the metastasis of ascending colon after curative resection of esophageal cancer: a case report with long-term survival

Solitary colonic metastasis from esophageal cancer is rare. The prognosis of patients with distant metastases from esophageal cancer is extremely poor. A case of long-term survival with colonic metastasis from esophageal cancer treated by multimodal therapy is reported. A 67-year-old man was diagnosed with middle thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The patient received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and then underwent subtotal esophagectomy. Approximately 1 year after esophagectomy, an asymptomatic, solitary colonic mass was detected on the follow-up computed tomography for esophageal cancer. Preoperative colonoscopy showed a 5-cm type 3 tumor at the ascending colon, and histological findings of the biopsy specimen indicated possible metastasis from primary esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The patient underwent laparoscopic ileocolic resection with D3 lymph noddle dissection. Histologically, the colonic tumor was confirmed to be a metastasis from the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. To the best of our knowledge, only eight cases with resected solitary colonic metastasis, including the present case, have been reported, and the present patient achieved greater than 3-year survival after esophagectomy. Resection of an asymptomatic solitary organ metastasis from primary esophageal cancer appears to be a good therapeutic option, even following esophagectomy.