What are the symptoms of early esophageal cancer?

summary

Esophageal cancer is one of the common digestive tract tumors, which is very harmful. Because the tumor is located in the esophagus, the daily diet of patients will be greatly affected, which will have a negative impact on the conditioning of the disease. If esophageal cancer can be detected and treated as soon as possible, the treatment effect will be greatly improved, so it is very important to understand the early symptoms of esophageal cancer. What are the symptoms of early esophageal cancer? Let's talk about it

What are the symptoms of early esophageal cancer?

The symptoms are often not obvious, but there may be different degrees of discomfort when swallowing coarse and hard food, including choking feeling of swallowing food, burning, needling or traction and friction pain behind the sternum. Food passes slowly with a sense of stagnation or foreign matter. Choking stagnation is usually relieved by swallowing water. The symptoms were mild and severe, and the progress was slow.

The typical symptom of esophageal cancer is progressive dysphagia, first difficult to swallow dry food, then semi liquid food, and finally water and saliva. Often spit mucoid sputum, saliva for the hypopharynx and esophageal secretions. The patient gradually became thin, dehydrated and weak. Persistent chest or back pain is an advanced symptom, and the cancer has invaded extra esophageal tissue. When the inflammatory edema caused by cancer obstruction subsides temporarily, or part of the cancer falls off,

The symptoms of obstruction can be relieved temporarily, which is often mistaken for improvement. If the cancer invades the recurrent laryngeal nerve, hoarseness may occur; If the cervical sympathetic ganglion is compressed, Horner syndrome may occur; If it invades trachea and bronchus, it may form esophagus, trachea or bronchus fistula, severe cough when swallowing water or food, and respiratory system infection. Finally, cachexia appeared. If there is liver, brain and other organ metastasis, jaundice, ascites, coma and other states can appear.

matters needing attention

Surgery is the first choice for the treatment of esophageal cancer. If the general condition is good, the cardiopulmonary function reserve is good, and there is no obvious sign of distant metastasis, surgical treatment can be considered. In general, cervical cancer length < 3cm, upper thoracic cancer length < 4cm, lower thoracic cancer length < 5cm are more likely to be resected. However, some tumors are not too large but can not be resected because of their close adhesion to the main organs such as aorta and trachea. For larger squamous cell carcinoma, the possibility of resection is not estimated, but the patient's general condition is good, preoperative radiotherapy can be used first, and surgery can be performed after the tumor size is reduced.