s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program 2 indicate an improvement in relative survival rates (RSRs) for patients diagnosed with both adenocarcinoma and squamous cell esophageal cancer over the last 3 decades.
To provide further information on the issue, we considered trends in survival by histotype of esophageal cancer for cases diagnosed between 1974 and 1998 from the cancer registries of Vaud and Neucha หtel in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. 3,4 Information on survival has been published only for the Vaud Cancer Registry until 1993 for all esophageal cancers combined. Overall, 5-year relative survival rates increased in males from 0.08 in 1974 -8 to 0.10 in 1989 -93, and in females from 0.06 to 0.08. 5 We decided therefore to consider trends in survival for both histologic types of esophageal cancer to 1998 for the registries of Vaud and Neucha หtel combined.
The data were abstracted from the Vaud and Neucha หtel Cancer Registries files, which include incident cases of malignant neoplasms in the cantons, whose populations, according to the December 2000 census, were about 620,300 and 165,700, respectively. Information collected comprises general demographic characteristics of each case (age, sex, municipality of