Yang YS, et al. - In patients who had radical esophagectomy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), the predictive ability of The Royal College of Pathologists criteria was compared with the College of American Pathologists criteria and a modified stratification for these patients was proposed. Researchers retrospectively reviewed 112 subjects with pathologically confirmed T3N0M0 ESCC and with no neoadjuvant therapy from June 2009 and July 2011. Data reported that circumferential resection margins (CRM) was an independent predictive factor for survival in esophageal cancer patients. In patients with ESCC, the modified CRM criteria had better predictive power than the traditional criteria. As compared with the two existing criteria, the improved homogeneity, discriminatory ability, and monotonicity gradients were also found in these modified criteria.