What are the symptoms of mid- to late-stage esophageal cancer

More than 90% of patients with mid- to late-stage esophageal cancer have difficulty swallowing. Its characteristics are that it occurs occasionally and is mild at first, but gradually worsens. At the beginning, patients only feel choked when swallowing dry and hard food in large mouthfuls, and they feel comfortable only after taking it with water or vomiting. Later, they need to chew slowly even when eating ordinary food, or drink soup to wash it down. As the disease worsens, it becomes difficult to eat noodles and porridge, and finally even liquid juice and tea cannot be swallowed.

Pain when swallowing is another common symptom of esophageal cancer in the middle and late stages. The nature of the pain is dull pain, burning pain, and stabbing pain. Due to the different locations of the lesions, the pain can occur in the neck, chest, and upper abdomen. The pain is more obvious when eating dry food. The cause of the pain is inflammation around the esophagus near the tumor, mediastinitis caused by the tumor to the mediastinum, or direct invasion of the spine by the cancer. The latter two types of pain are more persistent and stubborn.

Due to partial or complete obstruction of the esophagus caused by cancer, the patient may vomit and spit out a large amount of foamy, mucous sputum even without eating any food.

When esophageal cancer develops to the late stage, in addition to the tumor consuming a large amount of nutrients, the severe swallowing obstruction also significantly reduces the amount of food and water intake, resulting in weight loss, anemia, loose and dry skin, general weakness, etc. Once there is distant metastasis, enlarged and hard lymph nodes often appear at the base of the neck (especially on the left neck). When there is a lot of food and mucus residue in the esophagus, it can be inhaled into the trachea or lungs due to retrograde peristalsis of the esophagus, causing aspiration pneumonia.