Esophageal Cancer in India
About Esophageal Cancer ?
Esophageal cancer (or oesophageal cancer) is cancer arising from the esophagus—the food pipe that runs between the throat and the stomach.Symptoms often include difficulty in swallowing and weight loss. Other symptoms may include pain when swallowing, a hoarse voice, enlarged lymph nodes (glands) around the collarbone, a dry cough, and possibly coughing up or vomiting blood.
It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body.Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel movements, weight loss, and feeling tired all the time.
Signs and symptoms
The signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer depend on the location of the tumor in the bowel, and whether it has spread elsewhere in the body (metastasis). The classic warning signs include: worsening constipation, blood in the stool, decrease in stool caliber (thickness), loss of appetite, loss of weight, and nausea or vomiting in someone over 50 years old.
Causes
Greater than 75-95% of colon cancer occurs in people with little or no genetic risk.Other risk factors include older age, male gender,high intake of fat, alcohol or red meat, obesity, smoking, and a lack of physical exercise.Approximately 10% of cases are linked to insufficient activity.
Surgery
If the cancer is found at a very early stage, it may be removed during a colonoscopy.For people with localized cancer, the preferred treatment is complete surgical removal with adequate margins, with the attempt of achieving a cure. This can either be done by an open laparotomy or sometimes laparoscopically.The colon may than be reconnected or a person may have a colostomy.
If there are only a few metastases in the liver or lungs they may also be removed. Sometimes chemotherapy is used before surgery to shrink the cancer before attempting to remove it. The two most common sites of recurrence of colorectal cancer are the liver and lungs.
Esophageal Cancer
Diagnosis
Diagnosis of colorectal cancer is via sampling of areas of the colon suspicious for possible tumor development typically done during colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy, depending on the location of the lesion. The extent of the disease is then usually determined by a CT scan of the chest, abdomen and pelvis. There are other potential imaging test such as PET and MRI which may be used in certain cases. Colon cancer staging is done next and based on the TNM system which is determined by how much the initial tumor has spread, if and where lymph nodes are involved, and the extent of metastatic disease.
The microscopic cellular characteristics of the tumor are usually reported from the analysis of tissue taken from a biopsy or surgery. A pathology report will usually contain a description of cell type and grade.