Early symptoms of esophageal cancer are relatively mild and can easily be overlooked by people. However, as long as we observe carefully, we can always find the traces of the disease. For example, when eating, patients may experience slight discomfort or pain behind the sternal stalk; when swallowing continuously, they may feel a foreign body; sometimes they may also feel that the food stays somewhere in the esophagus for a short time, so many patients will have repeated swallowing movements when eating.
Typical symptoms of esophageal cancer: progressive difficulty in swallowing, firstly dry food, then semi-liquid food, and finally water and saliva cannot be swallowed. The symptoms of esophageal cancer are mainly caused by the difficulty in passing food due to the tumor in the esophagus.
What are the early symptoms of esophageal cancer?
Generally speaking, early symptoms are difficult to detect, while the symptoms in the middle and late stages are obvious, but the traces of the disease can still be detected by careful attention. If any of the following symptoms appear, you must go to the hospital for detailed examination, so as to detect the disease early or exclude the possibility of esophageal cancer.
Choking sensation of swallowing food: Only mild discomfort of swallowing, usually can enter general food without affecting health, sometimes there is stagnant feeling when swallowing food.
Post-sternal pain or stuffy discomfort: About half of the patients complained of slight pain or stuffy discomfort behind the sternum when swallowing food, mostly obvious when swallowing rough and hard food, hot food or irritating food, less painful when eating liquid food, more painful in some cases and persistent.
Foreign body sensation in the esophagus: Patients feel that there is something like rice grains or vegetable slices in the esophageal wall, which cannot be swallowed and cannot be spit out, not related to eating, and there is foreign body sensation even without swallowing action.
Dry throat and throat constriction: 1/3 of the patients complained of dryness and tightness in the throat, unfavorable swallowing of food or slight pain, especially in dry or rough food.
The feeling of slow passage and stagnation of food, and the same feeling when drinking water. In addition, some patients have symptoms such as back sinking and belching. More than half of the patients have more than one year from the appearance of symptoms to the diagnosis, and some of them have as long as four years, so it is of great clinical significance to make correct diagnosis and take correct treatment for early esophageal cancer.
Esophageal cancer is a common tumor of the digestive tract, and about 300,000 people die from esophageal cancer worldwide every year. China is one of the regions with high incidence of esophageal cancer in the world, with an average of about 150,000 people dying from this disease every year. There are more men than women, and the age of onset is mostly above 40 years old.
Risk factors of esophageal cancer
The cause of esophageal cancer is not clear, but its occurrence is related to the chronic stimulation of nitrosamines, inflammation and trauma, genetic factors and the content of trace elements in drinking water, food and vegetables.
1.Dietary habits: long-term smoking and strong alcohol, long-term hot and scalding food, hard food without fine chewing are related to the occurrence of esophageal cancer.
2.Carcinogenic substances: nitrosamines: pickled foods such as salted fish, salted meat, fish sauce, shrimp paste, etc. are often contaminated with molds during the pickling process, and molds can promote the increase of nitrite and secondary amine content in food in the body, producing strong carcinogenic substances – amine nitrite compounds. Excessive consumption of this type of food will lead to the stomach, intestines, pancreas and other digestive tract cancer chances.
3.Genetic factors: The susceptibility of the population is related to genetic and environmental conditions. Esophageal cancer has a remarkable phenomenon of family gathering, and it is not uncommon to see families with three or more consecutive generations of esophageal cancer patients in high incidence areas.
4, precancerous lesions and other disease factors, such as Barrett’s esophagus, chronic esophageal inflammation, esophageal mucosal damage, esophageal ulcer, esophageal white spots, etc. are considered precancerous lesions or precancerous diseases of esophageal cancer.
5.Lack of vitamins, protein and essential fatty acids in the diet can make the esophageal mucosa proliferate and interstitially change, which can further cause cancerous changes. The lack of trace elements such as iron, molybdenum and zinc is also related to the occurrence of esophageal cancer.
Like most tumors, the early treatment of esophageal cancer is good. For early and middle stage esophageal cancer patients, surgery is the main treatment. In case of locally advanced (mid-stage) esophageal cancer, surgery is not advisable and treatment is based on radiotherapy, and the probability of 5-year survival is about 30%.
Prevention
Esophageal cancer is a kind of malignant tumor of digestive system which can affect patients’ life and is not easy to be detected in early stage, and it is often in advanced stage when found.
Recommendation 1: Pay attention to diet
Moldy food and nitrosamines are important cancer-causing factors that increase people’s risk of developing cancer. Therefore, we should avoid eating vegetables after overnight, food suspected of being moldy, irregular pickled food and rotten fruits, and we should also eat less fried, deep-fried and barbecued food.
Recommendation 2: Protect the esophagus
Damaged esophagus is likely to bring about related diseases, so we must pay attention to the protection of esophagus in daily life, for example, chew slowly when eating; avoid eating too hot or too fast, which is also one of the preventive measures for esophageal cancer.
Recommendation 3: Improved drinking water
Investigation found that unhygienic drinking water in some areas is one of the main sources of carcinogenic nitrosamines and their nitrites entering human body, so it is better to have filtered and disinfected tap water with water quality that meets our health requirements.
Usually we should pay attention to examine our living habits, work and study and then busy green, but also pay attention to their own health, to do scientific diet, to develop good habits.