Radiation therapy for esophageal cancer includes two categories: radical and palliative. The irradiation methods include external and intracavitary radiation, preoperative radiation and postoperative radiation. The choice of treatment plan depends on the site and extent of the lesion, the degree of esophageal obstruction and the patient’s general condition. Surgery for cervical and upper thoracic esophageal cancer is highly traumatic and has a high complication rate, while radiotherapy is less invasive and has better efficacy than surgery, so radiotherapy should be preferred. Radical radiotherapy should be given 5 times a week with 1.8~2.0Gy each time, and the total dose is 60~70Gy/7~8 weeks. Palliative radiotherapy also tries to give radical amount or close to radical amount. Pre-operative radiotherapy is mainly applied to those who have already invaded esophageal cancer, and it is clinically estimated that there is difficulty in surgical resection alone, but the tumor is expected to be partially regressed and resected after radiotherapy. The dose of preoperative radiotherapy is 30-60Gy/4-6 weeks, and surgical resection will be performed 4-6 weeks after radiotherapy. For those who have residual tumor after palliative resection, postoperative pathological examination reveals cancer infiltration at the cut end of esophagus, the surgical margin is too narrow, or the tumor is basically resected but the clinical estimation may have subclinical lesions remaining, postoperative radiotherapy should be performed to improve the 5-year survival rate. Recently, some scholars suggest to use extracorporeal three-field irradiation method, super-segmented segmental radiotherapy, and 60Co, 137Cs, 192Yb intracavitary radiotherapy for esophageal cancer to reduce the radiation dose to lung tissue and spinal cord to reduce radiation damage and improve the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy. Contraindications 1.Tumor longer than 9cm is not easy to be radiated; 2.Esophagobronchial fistula or tumor has invaded the trachea; 3.Tumor spread to the subdiaphragm or involved the stomach, the efficacy is poor; 4.Anaemia and infection have been examined before radiotherapy. Radiotherapy complications 1.Radiation esophagitis, mostly completely healed within 2 months, but 50% of the patients will have esophageal stricture; 2.Radiation osteitis may occur in 10% of long-term survivors; 3.Radiation myelitis is seen six months to several years after over-irradiation of spinal cord area, and paraplegia may occur in severe cases; 4.Radiation pneumonia may occur. Patients with esophageal cancer radiotherapy should develop good eating habits, eat less and more meals, do not overeat, quit smoking and drinking, and avoid eating spicy, spicy, hard, hot, fried and acidic irritating foods to prevent bleeding and obstruction at the lesion site. You should eat high-calorie, high-protein, high-vitamin and easy-to-digest food, less sweet food, and drink an appropriate amount of water after each meal to flush the food attached to the lesion site and increase the sensitivity of radiotherapy.