4 treatments for esophageal cancer

Esophageal cancer is a malignant tumor originating from the esophagus. Early diagnosis and treatment are the key to achieving a radical cure. Clinical treatments for esophageal cancer include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, endoscopic treatment, and so on.

1. Surgical treatment

The treatment of esophageal cancer is mainly surgical resection. In my country, the surgical resection rate of esophageal cancer exceeds 80%. Early esophageal cancer can be cured through surgical resection. The 5-year survival rate of esophageal cancer patients is about 30%.

2. Radiation therapy

Radiotherapy is mainly used for patients with esophageal cancer who cannot receive surgical treatment, such as the elderly, upper esophageal cancer, middle and lower esophageal cancer with local invasion, etc. Cobalt-60 radiotherapy is often used, with an irradiation dose of 30 to 40 Gy. In addition, preoperative radiotherapy can be performed for tumors with larger lesions to shrink the cancer mass, which is beneficial to reduce intraoperative bleeding and improve the resection rate.

3. Chemotherapy

The current status of chemotherapy for esophageal cancer is not satisfactory. It is mostly used as an auxiliary treatment method for esophageal cancer in clinical practice. Commonly used chemotherapy drugs include cisplatin, bleomycin, 5-fluorouracil, vincristine, mitomycin, etc. The effect of chemotherapy alone is poor, so two or three drugs are often used in combination for chemotherapy.

4. Endoscopic interventional therapy

In recent years, endoscopic interventional treatment of esophageal cancer has become more and more widely used, and it is a good choice for patients who cannot undergo surgery. For small cancer lesions without lymph node metastasis, endoscopic mucosal resection can be performed; for early esophageal cancer, endoscopic ablation can be performed; for advanced esophageal cancer, simple dilation, esophageal stent placement, endoscopic tumor ablation , etc. can be performed according to the specific condition or patient requirements.