Esophageal cancer is one of the common tumors and one of the diseases that seriously threaten people’s health and lives. Every year, about 209,000 people die from esophageal cancer in China. The treatment outcome of esophageal cancer varies greatly depending on the early and late stages of the disease. Take surgery as an example, the 5-year survival rate of early-stage cancer is about 90%, while the 5-year survival rate of mid- to late-stage cancer is reduced to 20%-30%.
Esophageal cancer is formed by normal epithelial cells of esophageal mucosa gradually becoming cancer by stimulation of various factors inside and outside the body. It is still unclear how long it takes to develop from normal epithelium to cancer. Generally speaking, it takes several years to develop from esophageal epithelial hyperplasia to cancer, and about one year to develop from early cancer to middle and late cancer.
Early signs of esophageal cancer
In the past, it is wrong to think that there are no symptoms and signs of early esophageal cancer. Because these signals and symptoms are mild, appearing and disappearing automatically without treatment, they are ignored by patients and doctors and fail to be further examined and diagnosed, and then the best treatment time is lost. In fact, most patients with early stage esophageal cancer have experienced different types and degrees of self-perceived symptoms, and should be alerted if the following symptoms are found
1.Choking sensation of swallowing: This is the most common symptom. Patients can often remember clearly when it first occurs and the cause of it, which is mostly caused by eating food that is not easily chewed. After the first occurrence of obstructive choking, it disappears on its own without treatment and reappears in a few days or months. Patients describe this symptom as a gas obstruction in the esophagus when swallowing food, so the complaint is “choking”. Because the esophagus is highly elastic and dilatable, when the lesion is limited to the epithelium of the esophagus and does not involve the muscular layer of the esophageal wall, there is only a choking sensation and it does not affect the swallowing of food. This symptom is often related to the patient’s mood swings, so patients often associate the occurrence of this symptom with “anger”.
2.Posterior sternal pain: This is also the most common symptom. Patients often complain of slight pain behind the sternum when swallowing food, and can explain the location of the pain. The nature of the pain can be burning pain, pins and needles pain or pulling and rubbing pain. The severity of the pain is related to the nature of the food: the pain is worse when swallowing rough, hot food or food with irritation; the pain is lighter with fluid, warm food. The pain is worse when the food is swallowed and is relieved or disappears after eating. In some patients, the pain is more severe or even persistent. The site of pain is not exactly the same as the site of the lesion in the esophagus. Most of the pain behind the sternum can be temporarily relieved by medication, but after a few days or months, it occurs again when the patient experiences mood swings or improper eating, and often recurs for a long time.
3, foreign body sensation in the esophagus: patients often complain that because of a certain eating rough food will be esophageal abrasion, or suspected of accidentally swallowing foreign bodies left in the esophagus, often feel that there are such as rice grains or vegetable fragments attached to the esophageal wall, swallowing, but not pain, not related to eating, even if not swallowing action, there is a foreign body sensation, the site of foreign body sensation and the lesion site consistent.
4. Slow passage of food and feeling of retention: Patients often complain that the esophageal opening becomes smaller and tighter, and food moves down slowly with a feeling of retention. This symptom only appears when swallowing food and disappears after eating, independent of the nature of the food, and the same feeling is felt when drinking water. Patients often feel as if there are steps in the esophagus when swallowing food, and the food slowly “stutters” downward.
5, subxiphoid pain: Patients mostly complain of burning-like stabbing pain, varying in severity, mostly when swallowing food, alleviate or disappear after eating, and some are persistent hidden pain, not much related to eating.
6. Dryness and tightness in the throat: Patients often complain of dryness and tightness in the throat, or describe it as “neck” tightness, unfavorable swallowing of food, and slight pain, which is obvious when swallowing dry and rough food. The occurrence of this symptom is also often related to the patient’s mood swings.
7.Post-sternal stuffiness and discomfort: Patients often cannot describe this symptom specifically, but only say that they feel uncomfortable in the chest.
The above are some common symptoms of early stage esophageal cancer. In addition, a few patients may have symptoms such as back sinking, belching and ear pain, and even a very few patients may not have any symptoms. Patients with early stage esophageal cancer may have multiple symptoms or only one symptom, some of which last for a long time, while others occur intermittently. In daily life, these uncomfortable symptoms may appear simultaneously or successively, so we should be especially vigilant and go to hospital for examination in time after the appearance of the above uncomfortable symptoms.
How to prevent esophageal cancer?
Although the causes of esophageal cancer are not clear yet, from the information we have, prevention should start from the following aspects.
1.Changing dietary habits
Don’t eat food that is too hot, hot or too rough. Too hot and rough food in the passage of the esophagus, contact with the mucosal epithelium, will scald the esophageal mucosal epithelium, so that the mucosal epithelium is broken, ulcerated, bleeding and other lesions. Do not eat too fast, do not gobble, do not eat food too fast.
2, do not smoke, drink less alcohol
Do not drink strong alcohol in excess to reduce the stimulation of the esophageal mucosa. The high alcohol content or other harmful chemicals contained in alcohol may multiply the incidence factors of cancer in the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx and esophagus caused by smoking.
3.No squatting food
Because of the increased pressure in the abdominal cavity when squatting, food entering the stomach through the cardia is bound to be obstructed, and the esophagus has to increase peristalsis and pressure to transport the food mass. Food and esophageal friction aggravates the damage to the esophageal wall. Loss of mucosal epithelium will quickly proliferate to repair the inflamed mucosal epithelium, if often repeatedly make the mucosal epithelium by this bad stimulation, the mucosal epithelium will repeatedly proliferate, repair process, there are some in the form, function of abnormal “anomalous” cells, and the accumulation of these abnormal cells, it will The accumulation of these abnormal cells will gradually develop in a bad direction and lead to malignant changes, and finally form cancer cells that keep expanding.
4.Eat fresh food
Don’t eat moldy food and less sauerkraut: because moldy food can produce toxins. Sauerkraut contains a large amount of nitrosamines, which have strong carcinogenic effects. Reduce or avoid the intake of nitrosamine chemicals, nitrosamines are a class of chemical carcinogens that are very carcinogenic. Therefore, as far as possible, do not eat long-stored spoiled food, pickled meat food and pickled vegetables, etc. Do not eat moldy food, which is also one of the factors that induce esophageal cancer.
5.Don’t ignore the early precursors of esophageal cancer
As the saying goes, “three feet of ice is not a day’s cold”, and the development of esophageal cancer is not a matter of night and day. Therefore, if middle-aged and elderly people above 40 years old, especially those who come from or live in areas with high incidence of esophageal cancer (more so for men), and those who usually have the habit of eating pickles and drinking alcohol, have one or more aura symptoms such as difficulty in swallowing, pain or discomfort behind the sternum, etc. recently, they should not take it lightly and should seek timely medical attention for esophageal exfoliation cytology examination, barium meal X-ray examination, esophagoscopy and biopsy in order to detect the disease at an early stage. The disease should be detected early. As long as the three early, that is, early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment, the survival rate of patients can be greatly improved.