[Esophageal cancer]

Esophageal cancer is a pathology with a remarkable geographical variety, considered to be a disease of the poor. The common incidence reported in western countries of 3 per 100,000 per year, contrasts with 140 per 100,000 reported in Central Asia in an area that is known as the "esophageal cancer belt". Among a wide spectrum of potential etiologic agents, the use of alcohol and tobacco remain the most frequently reported. The most common pathologic type is squamous cell carcinoma, although is important to consider that in the past decades, a shift to adenocarcinoma has been consistently observed. This phenomenon might have an explanation in the inclusion of tumors of the cardia and the importance of metaplasic Barret's epithelium and gastroesophageal reflux. As it happens in the majority of gastrointestinal tumors, diagnosis is often done late in esophageal cancer. The most common presenting symptoms of esophageal cancer are dysphagia and weight loss. Others are, odynophagia, upper GI bleeding, hoarseness and respiratory symptoms. In patients with advanced disease, diagnostic studies are confirmatory in nature. The combined use of contrast esophagogram and endoscopy yield to a diagnostic accuracy above 95%. These studies have to be complimentary. Computed tomography is the best modality for staging tumors of the esophagus. Although its accuracy varies from one study to another, demonstration of disease beyond the esophagus precludes surgical treatment. Endoluminal ultrasound has assumed an important role as part of the staging studies, considered by some authors superior to CT scanning. Its use is not considered rutinary because of the difficulty on passing the instrument through an obstructive lesion, and to the fact that this technology is not widely available. In the majority of patients, surgical treatment is considered to be palliative, due to the presence of advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. From the multiple surgical options available, transhiatal esophagectomy without thoracotomy is one of the more widely accepted techniques. Controversy persists regarding the optimal surgical approach to the disease. It is well accepted that prognosis depends more in the biology of the tumor and the stage of the disease rather than the surgical procedure. Overall five year survival after esophageal resection is 20%, regardless of the surgical option. Other alternatives are standard transthoracic esophagectomy, the thoraco-abdominal approach and the triple approach with extensive lymphadenectomy of cervical, mediastinal and abdominal areas. These latter procedures carry more morbidity and mortality rates. It is probably the multimodality approach with pre or postoperative chemotherapy and radiotherapy what can impact in further improvement of the poor survival rates for this disease. This combined approach is currently being investigated under control prospective randomized trials.