Doctors and scientists at the Duke Esophageal Cancer Program are at the forefront of the quest to develop new treatments and cures for esophageal cancers and side effects of treatment. For example:

• Duke physician-scientists are studying tumors removed from esophageal cancer patients during surgery to build predictive models to improve risk assessment and treatment. Investigators determine the molecular biologic markers of each tumor and are using this information to predict which patients will do well with different types of surgical, medical, and radiation treatments.
• This Duke team is also looking at markers that indicate a patient’s resistance to chemotherapy and radiation therapies. By being able to assess, in advance, who will respond to certain treatments and who will not, cancer specialists can better target treatments for individual patients.
• Duke radiation oncologists are evaluating novel ways to improve the response of tumors to local and regional therapies. Innovative protocols for patients with esophageal cancer are combining novel chemotherapeutic agents and "target therapies" with precise and sophisticated delivery of radiation therapy. Image-guided radiation therapy with the use of PET, MRI, and CT are being employed to better target radiation of tumor with avoidance of normal tissue. Duke investigators are national leaders in a quest to better predict and monitor the response of both tumors and normal tissue to radiation.
• Duke oncologists are leading several clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of novel chemotherapy agents for metastatic cancer and radiation sensitizers for localized cancers. This work focuses on novel angiogenesis and signal transduction inhibitors, agents that deprive tumors of their needed blood supply and/or special factors that drive tumor growth.