Malignant tumours of the cervical oesophagus

Forty-seven patients with malignancy of the cervical oesophagus are described and compared with a group of 647 patients with hypopharyngeal malignancy. There was a higher proportion of non-squamous malignancy in cervical oesophageal cancer compared with hypopharyngeal cancer. Cervical oesophageal malignancy tended to present earlier with significantly lower T stage and neck node metastases were relatively unusual at presentation. Patients with cervical oesophageal malignancy were frequently incurable at the time they are first seen and 21 had palliative treatment only, 26 patients had curative treatment, 12 underwent radical radiotherapy and 14 had surgery. Cervical oesophageal malignancy had a significantly worse prognosis than hypopharyngeal malignancy with an 18% 3 year survival compared with a 33% 3 year survival (chi (1)2 = 7.1089, P < 0.01). Those patients with oesophageal malignancy who were treated fared considerably better than the whole group with 30% being alive at 3 years (chi (1)2 = 10.5185, P < 0.01).