Clinical symptoms of esophageal cancer There are four main symptoms of early stage esophageal cancer: (1) slight choking sensation when swallowing hard food; (2) pain in the esophagus when swallowing; (3) dullness and pain after sternum when swallowing; (4) foreign body sensation in the esophagus after swallowing. Typical symptoms of middle and late stage esophageal cancer: (1) Difficulty in swallowing: symptoms of constricted type and medullary type are more severe; symptoms of myxomatous type, intraluminal type and ulcerated type are less severe. (2) Vomiting: vomiting often occurs after eating and vomits a lot of mucus and food. (3) Thoracic back pain: usually caused by peri-esophageal inflammation, mediastinitis, esophageal ulcer or severe external invasion of the tumor. When severe pain or accompanied by fever, it is a sign of tumor perforation. (4) Weight loss, dehydration and malnutrition and many complications and compression symptoms of advanced tumor, such as respiratory symptoms, nerve paralysis symptoms, distant metastasis of lymph nodes, liver metastasis, bone metastasis, etc. Common tests for esophageal cancer 1.Fiber gastroscopy has been widely used in the diagnosis of esophageal cancer and is the main means to diagnose esophageal cancer. Esophagoscopy can directly observe the size, shape and location of tumor, and more importantly, biopsy can be performed on the lesion to make a clear diagnosis. 2.Barium X-ray examination: It is one of the important means to diagnose esophageal and cardia tumors. Barium X-ray examination of esophageal cancer can not only determine the location, length and degree of obstruction of the lesion, but also determine whether the esophageal lesion has invasion and the extent of invasion. 3.CT examination: CT scan can clearly show the relationship between esophagus and adjacent mediastinal organs. In addition to understanding the local lesion of esophagus, it can also understand whether there is tumor metastasis in mediastinal lymph nodes, lung, liver, etc.