Can esophageal cancer be diagnosed through gastroscopy?

The treatment process of esophageal cancer must establish confidence that it can be cured. Esophageal cancer treatment is not a disease that is easy to cure. Esophageal cancer patients must have patience and perseverance in treatment. Can esophageal cancer be diagnosed through gastroscopy? What are the early diagnosis methods of esophageal cancer? Let's take a look at the introduction of experts.

Gastroscopy is the first choice, and it is even an indispensable examination! The key to curing esophageal cancer is early detection and early treatment. Therefore, anyone over the age of 50 who has a sense of stagnation or difficulty swallowing after eating should undergo a gastroscopy in time. Generally speaking, esophageal cancer is rarely missed during gastroscopy. If the gastroscopy photos are clear, even if the gastroscopy is done in a small hospital, and the examination report says that there is no lesion in the esophagus, it is generally fine, and there is no need to go to a large hospital for repeated gastroscopy. However, if a gastroscopy in a small hospital finds lesions in the esophagus and it cannot be proved whether it is esophageal cancer or precancerous lesions, you should consult an experienced doctor.

Gastroscopy can directly observe tiny lesions and can easily clamp the lesion tissue for pathological examination. It is currently the main means of diagnosis for esophageal cancer. When endoscopists discover esophageal cancer, it is generally not easy to determine whether it is early or late stage cancer, because the early or late stage of cancer is not determined by the size of the tumor, nor is it the usual understanding that a large tumor is late stage, but by the depth of tumor infiltration in the esophageal wall. When the tumor infiltrates more than half of the esophageal wall, it is in the advanced stage. If an ultrasonic endoscopy is performed, the depth of tumor infiltration can be observed. Therefore, in order to determine the treatment plan, doctors often recommend that patients undergo another ultrasonic endoscopy.

It is worth noting that the discovery of esophageal masses or ulcers during gastroscopy does not mean that it is a malignant tumor, because some benign lesions, such as esophageal tuberculosis and Crohn's disease, can also show similar manifestations. Therefore, it is necessary to clamp tissue for pathological examination after esophageal lesions are found during gastroscopy. If there is no clear pathological examination report, surgeons generally will not perform surgical treatment, and internists dare not rashly perform chemotherapy. Because too little tissue is clamped for pathological examination during endoscopic biopsy, it is sometimes not possible to clearly report it as esophageal cancer in clinical practice, resulting in repeated gastroscopy examinations. Experienced doctors can reduce the occurrence of variants.

Esophageal cancer refers to a malignant tumor that occurs in the esophagus. Its occurrence often takes a long time, which means that it is impossible to suddenly appear like a cold or fever. It is generally believed that the occurrence of esophageal cancer goes through stages such as epithelial atypical hyperplasia, carcinoma in situ, invasive cancer, and metastatic cancer. Atypical hyperplasia and carcinoma in situ can be completely cured. Atypical hyperplasia of esophageal squamous epithelium is an important precancerous lesion of esophageal cancer. It usually takes several years or even more than ten years from atypical hyperplasia to cancer. Esophageal invasive cancer is also called advanced cancer. About half of the patients can be cured, but the possibility of cure is relatively small when it comes to metastatic cancer. Generally, the condition can only be controlled. Therefore, esophageal cancer focuses on early diagnosis.

If the experience is good, patients with esophageal cancer can be recommended to do positron emission tomography (PET-CT examination). This method is relatively simple and convenient to find out whether esophageal cancer has metastasized throughout the body. Its principle is to use the characteristics of tumor cells as high-metabolism cells, which eat more than normal cells and never get full. During the examination, patients are injected with a specially labeled sugar (mutated sugar is fake and will not be digested after eating). If there are cancer cells in the body, they will eat a lot of sugar, while normal cells will be full after eating a little and will not eat anymore. As a result, if a large amount of labeled sugar accumulates in the body during the CT scan, there may be a tumor, which can easily show where the tumor is and where the tumor has metastasized.

Some other imaging examination methods, such as esophageal barium meal examination, are the most commonly used, mainly for patients who are not suitable for gastroscopy. However, these methods can only detect advanced or large lesions of esophageal cancer, and have limited effect on early cancer or precancerous lesions. Therefore, they are not recommended as routine examinations. CT examinations also have similar limitations and cannot replace gastroscopy. However, after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer, doctors often recommend patients to undergo another CT examination. The main purpose is to observe whether the esophageal cancer has metastasized or spread outside the esophagus. If it is clear that there are tumors in other organs, it means that the esophageal cancer has reached an advanced stage and the treatment plan is different. Surgery is not the main method.

Can esophageal cancer be diagnosed through gastroscopy? In fact, we need to pay more attention to this issue in our daily life. Gastroscopy is still a relatively effective method for examining and diagnosing esophageal cancer, so we should pay more attention when we encounter this situation in the future.