Esophageal cancer is cancer of the esophagus, the hollow muscular tube that carries food and liquid from your throat to your stomach to be digested.
About 13,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with esophageal cancer each year. The incidence of esophageal cancer is rising in the United States, particularly in the form of the disease called adenocarcinoma.
Esophageal Cancer, Barrett's Esophagus & GERD
Cancer of the esophagus begins in the innermost layer of esophageal tissue and grows outward. Cancer that arises from the cells that form the top layer of the esophageal lining is called squamous cell carcinoma. Another type of esophageal cancer -- adenocarcinoma -- may develop in people with Barrett's esophagus, a condition in which cells lining the part of the esophagus near the opening of the stomach change in response to constant exposure to stomach acids. Normally, a muscle at the end of the esophagus, called a sphincter, opens to allow food to enter the stomach and closes to prevent harmful digestive acids from the stomach from bubbling up into the esophagus. When stomach juices gurgle into the esophagus -- a condition called "reflux" -- the result is heartburn.
Long-term acid reflux (often called gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD) can change the cells of the lower esophagus into the type of cells lining the stomach, and these cells can become cancer in some patients. In fact, the incidence of adenocarcinoma of the lower end of the esophagus and upper part of the stomach has increased more rapidly since the 1970s than any other cancer in the United States, especially in young and middle-aged white men. Doctors suspect that this may be due in part to an increasing incidence of GERD; researchers are seeking to determine if treating such reflux may reduce the risk of esophageal cancer.
