How fast does a cancer grow and spread? In clinical practice, doctors often use a metric called “Doubling Time” (DT) to help measure the growth rate of a tumor and to determine whether it is benign or malignant. Doubling time is the time it takes for a tumor to double in size.
There are few studies on the natural course of esophageal cancer. The average time to doubling of esophageal cancer is reported in the literature to be 3.3 months, with an average of 3.6 months for progression from superficial to progressive cancer and 2.4 months for progressive cancer. In another publication, the doubling time was 5.5±1.7 months for superficial carcinoma, 4.6±2.9 months for progression from superficial to progressive carcinoma, and 3.4±3.4 months for progressive carcinoma.
However, there is a strong heterogeneity in the behavior of cancer cells. That is, in the same patient, cancer cells in different parts of the tumor primary or in different metastatic sites have different biology and may not grow and spread at the same rate.
Esophageal cancer of the same type and stage may grow and spread at different rates, respond differently to treatment, and have different survival times among different patients because of different disease stages and physical conditions. The differences in lifestyle habits and the presence or absence of bad hobbies will also affect the growth and spread of cancer cells.
So, it’s hard for doctors to give an exact number to tell you if your cancer is growing fast and if it will spread.
It’s important to note that progression from a healthy esophagus to precancerous lesions and then to carcinoma in situ is slow, with progression measured in years, and it takes many years to progress one step. However, after developing to infiltrating cancer, the development of cancer will gradually accelerate and the development speed is measured in months. Therefore, if you have habits such as smoking, alcoholism, betel nut chewing, and love of hot porridge and hot tea, it is recommended to change your bad lifestyle as soon as possible; if you have chronic esophagitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, esophageal leukoplakia, cardia failure, Barrett’s esophagus (BE), etc., you must be actively treated, closely monitored, and regularly reviewed.