Cancer of the oesophagus is notorious for its grave prognosis with an overall 5-year survival rate of 10-20%. Surgical resection with curative intent remains the most effective treatment for this disease. To improve the survival, a better treatment approach is in need to manage patients with oesophageal cancer. Unfortunately, the use of preoperative adjuvant chemotherapy or adjuvant radiotherapy does not confer any survival benefit to patients with localized oesophageal cancer as proven in most randomized studies. However, the combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy has greater clinical efficacy in achieving complete pathological regression of the tumour as well as the response rate as shown in our preliminary results. In fact, treatment of squamous oesophageal cancer by primary chemo-irradiation without surgery is now feasible.