We welcome patients to visit the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department of Tianjin Medical University General Hospital or through our online consultation, Dr. Dong’s consultation website. We will promptly answer your questions, formulate individualized treatment plan and provide the next treatment plan according to your condition as much as possible. Esophageal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in China, with the majority of patients above the age of 40, and 2/3 of patients occurring between the ages of 50 and 70, accounting for the second place of cancer deaths in all parts of the body. The early symptoms of esophageal cancer are often not obvious and can be easily ignored, and even the disease is delayed to advanced stage. If you have the basic knowledge about esophageal cancer and are alert to the symptoms, it is not difficult to detect it early. Early symptoms of esophageal cancer may include the following: 1. Choking and stagnation when swallowing food: Generally, it is caused by swallowing dry rice, buns and other foods in large mouths. This symptom can disappear on its own, or can be relieved by swallowing water, but it can appear again after several days or weeks, and the number of times will gradually increase and the degree of choking will worsen again and again. 2.Pain in the front of the chest when eating: This sensation often occurs when swallowing, and its nature can be burning, needle-like or friction-like pain. When swallowing rough, overheated, irritating food (such as chili peppers, strong wine), the pain increases, and then disappears after swallowing. Such pain is mild and less frequent at the initial stage, but it can gradually worsen and recur later. About 50% of early esophageal cancer patients have this symptom. 3.Foreign body feeling in esophagus: Generally, there is such feeling when swallowing, but some patients feel foreign body in esophagus even without swallowing, as if there are food residues adhering to the esophagus wall, which is not painful but uncomfortable. 4. Dryness and tightness in the throat: 30% of patients often complain of dryness and tightness in the throat, or describe it as tightness in the neck, especially when swallowing dry and rough food, and the occurrence of this symptom is often related to the patient’s mood swings. Therefore, all patients above 40 years old, especially men, should pay attention to the above symptoms and go to hospital for examination, so that early diagnosis and early treatment of esophageal cancer can significantly improve the therapeutic effect. 1.X-ray barium esophagogram: Barium meal examination of esophagus can determine whether there are lesions on the esophagus, the location of lesions, the scope and degree of destruction. 2.Esophagoscopy (i.e. gastroscopy): Gastroscopy not only can clearly check whether there is any lesion on the esophagus, the location of the lesion, the scope and extent of the damage under direct vision, but also, more importantly, can take biopsy for the purpose of confirming the diagnosis; using ultrasound esophagoscopy can also understand and evaluate the invasion of esophageal cancer on the esophageal wall and surrounding organs and whether there is any enlargement and metastasis of local lymph nodes. Introduction of esophageal cancer treatment The treatment of esophageal cancer is a comprehensive treatment mainly based on surgery. The treatment effect of early detection of esophageal cancer is satisfactory, and most patients with early esophageal cancer can survive for a long time. The 5-year survival rate of early esophageal cancer (stage I) treated by surgery in our department is as high as 70-80%, and the quality of survival is high. At present, most of the esophageal cancer surgeries in our department adopt minimally invasive surgical treatment, which not only can achieve the same treatment effect as opening surgery, but also has the advantages of small incision, less bleeding, less pain, faster recovery, less trauma to the body and beautiful incision.