Fig. 1

Schematic overview of the SANO trial, comparing active surveillance with standard oesophagectomy in patients with oesophageal cancer and a clinically complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Patients in whom no residual tumour is detected at two clinical response evaluations after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy are considered to have a clinically complete response. Patients who do not have a clinically complete response will undergo oesophagectomy in case no distant metastases are detected. If patients have residual disease at one of the clinical response evaluations during active surveillance (CRE 3–12), postponed oesophagectomy will be performed in case no distant metastases are detected and active surveillance will be stopped. nCRT neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, CRE clinical response evaluation, cCR clinically complete responder