Fig. 4

Forest plot comparison of the ORs of the OS between the dCRT and surgery arms for patients with different stages of esophageal cancer. The OR of the 2-year OS for stage I esophageal cancer was 1.397 (95% CI 0.740–2.638; P = 0.303). Publication bias test: P = 0.133 (Begg’s test), P = 0.039 (Egger’s test). The OR of the 2-year OS for stage II–III esophageal cancer was 0.418 (95% CI 0.022–7.833; P = 0.560). Publication bias (not available due to lack of studies). Weights are from random-effects analyses