Fig. 1

Flowchart of the SANO-2 study. nCRT: neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy; CRE: clinical response evaluation; FDG-PET/CT: positron emission tomography-computed tomography; EUS: endoscopic ultrasound; FNA: fine-needle aspiration; MTB: multidisciplinary tumor board. *If FNA cytology obtained from suspicious lymph nodes is non-representative, EUS-FNA should be repeated within 2 weeks. If cytology of suspicious lymph nodes is non-representative again the patient should be considered to have residual disease. **Surgical resection can be offered to selected patients that have a high clinical/diagnostic suspicion of tumor regrowth, despite repeatedly negative (cyto)histology