BACKGROUND: Surgical resection remains the mainstay of treatment for esophageal cancer. Despite recent advances in surgical therapy, i.e. en bloc resection and extended lymphadenectomy, the overall long-term prognosis of patients with esophageal carcinoma has not, however, improved during the last decades. One of the major reasons in its relatively high recurrence rate. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A retrospective review of recurrent patterns of cancer in 42 patients who underwent curative surgery for primary esophageal cancer was performed clinically and histo-phthologically. RESULT: Nineteen patients had developed recurrece during the 18 to 52 months(mean 34.2 nonths), 8 had local recurrences, 1 had both, and 11 had systemic recurrences. Twelve patients(63%) had developed recurrence within 1 year, 5 patients(26%) between 1 year to 2 patients(11%) after 2 years. The recurrence rate according to growth pattern of tumor or presence of microinvasive findings was not statistically significant, but it increased significantly in clinical tumor stage III than stage IIA, B and in patients with the number of metastatic lymph node over ten. CONCLUSION: Post-operative recurrences of esophageal cancer appear as a high rate even though curative wide resection was done. Several clinical and histo-pathological factors correlate with the recurrence.