Disease recurrence and metastasis are common after curative treatment for patients with esophageal cancer. Thus, it is important to identify the risk factors to predict disease recurrence and metastasis. Pleural lavage cytology (PLC) is reported to be associated with disease recurrence and patient survival in lung cancer, but the value is unclear in esophageal cancer. The aim of this study is to evaluate the value of PLC in esophageal cancer patient in terms of frequencies, association with patient survival, and efficacy of postoperative treatment.

Pleural lavage cytology will be performed before esophageal resection, and after resection, respectively. Frequency of positive pleural lavage cytology will be determined, and the value of pleural lavage cytology for patients with resectable esophageal cancer will be studied.

Inclusion Criteria:

• esophageal cancer with histological confirmation before treatment.
• resectable esophageal cancer with clinical T1-4a/N0-3/M0 staging
• potential R0 resection
• no history of other malignancies

Exclusion Criteria:

• severe major organ dysfunction (American society of anesthesiologisits score >3 )
• patients underwent ESD or EMR
• pleural lavage is unavailable due to adhesions

patients with esophageal cancer

individual participant data could be shared after the recruitment of all 385 patients