[A case of resected esophageal cancer with systemic tumor microembolism]

A 54-year-old man developed severe respiratory failure and died four months after surgery of esophageal cancer. The patient showed clinical symptoms of subacute cor pulmonale as reported by Brill and Robertson. Autopsy revealed the presence of tumor microembolism in the small arteries of the lung, heart, liver, etc. Generalized tumor embolism in the arteries, unlike those in the veins, has rarely been reported. The mechanism of systemic tumor embolism in this case was assumed to have been transpulmonary passage of tumor cells into various organs without causing pulmonary metastasis.