Detection Of Micrometastasis By Nested RT-PCR In Peripheral Blood From The Patients With Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significances

BackgroundEsophageal squamous carcinoma (SCC) is one of the six most common malignant diseases in the world. Linzhou city (formerly Linxian) and nearby counties in Henan province has been well recognized as the highest incidence and mortality areas for SCC in the world. 80% of the SCC patient at the first clinical diagnosis are at advanced stage and have a very poor prognosis, five-year survival rate is only about 10%. The recurrence and death incurred by SCC are ascribed to infiltration, invasion and metastasis of SCC. At present, the clinical stage based on TNM classification and histopathological grade are still used to evaluate the prognosis of SCC patients. However, it has been well recognized that there is discordance between the aforementioned classification and the actual prognosis. For example, the SCC patients with well differentiation may have a worse prognosis than those with poor differentiation, indicating the limitation of these markers in evaluating SCC...