What is the key question?

• Airway involvement in association with esophageal carcinoma indicates the most common locoregional metastasis and portends poor prognosis. Treatment with airway stenting improves symptoms but evidence of influence on survival has not been demonstrated.

What is the bottom line?

• The authors retrospectively reviewed 37 patients with EC and airway involvement at a single institution. They analysed demographics and included timing of cancer treatment and survival time in an effort to determine what factors may predict outcome in this group.

Why read on?

• In patients with bronchoscopically visible airway involvement from esophageal cancer, treatment with esophageal stenting, chemo- or radiotherapy was associated with poorer outcome. Treatment naïve patients, treatment after stenting and early onset airway involvement were factors associated with improved survival. Kaplan-Meier curves suggest these results are robust but of course these results require further studies including multi-centre trials and consideration of prospective analyses.