Stage 4

Dana Farber and Beth Israel are affiliated with one another and located next to each other, so the oncologist may be at Dana Farber while the surgeon could be at Beth Israel. I think doctors often have teams they work with for particular types of treatments.

Da Vinci robotics are a method of robotic surgery they use, so it a is very precise and less invasive method of surgery. Believe it was originally used with prostate surgery but it's uses are being expanded and include esophageal surgery now.  I would guess only certain people are candidates for this method. You can locate info online on davinci procedures since I know I have seen websites listed for them in some of my medical language and coding classes. Think several people have mentioned having davinci surgery done in California.

My spouse was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 EC. I proposed the question regarding radiation with chemo and the answer was that when receiving radiation, you must stop the chemo during that period of time as it will interfere with the chemo. Hope this helps. My husband is receiving EOX treatment and we have been to Dana Farber in Boston. 

That's odd. We started this journey in December of 2005 with EC and lung mets. Initial treatment was 25 radiation treatments with 6 simultaneous weeks of chemo (1 chemo cocktail infusion/week).  We used cisplatin, irinotecan and docitaxel because of radiosensitivity, which means they actually enhance the radiations effects while working systemically on the cancer. At the end of this, he took a brief break (not too long or surgery is no longer an option due to tissue toughening as side effect of radiation). We rescanned and lung mets were gone, EC primary tumor shrunk and we went on to Ivor-Lewis and lung resection.  I'm surprised to say the least. The chemo protocol we used was developed at Dana Farber.