Symptoms of esophageal cancer
Early symptoms of esophageal cancer are subtle and nonspecific, and are very similar in both the squamous type and adenocarcinoma.
The dysphagia (difficulty swallowing solid food) is usually the first symptom and is the most common. Also usually accompanied by weight loss. This usually occurs when the stenosis (narrowing) of the esophageal lumen is important (from 13 mm), and that usually already correspond to a locally advanced stage. Weight loss is related to the reduction in food intake, changes in dietary habits and tumor-related anorexia.
The feeling of difficulty swallowing usually combat the patient's chewing food and swallowing it with water, but gradually this also arises dysphagia to drink fluids and to a degree becomes more odynophagia (painful swallowing and difficulty).
Other symptoms of esophageal cancer are a feeling of retrosternal discomfort (thorax above the diaphragm), heartburn, regurgitation of saliva or digested food, hoarseness or voice-bitonal when the recurrent laryngeal nerve is infiltrated-(signs of poor prognosis) .
Another common symptom of esophageal cancer is the chronic anemia of small amounts of blood loss, but patients do not often refer manes (expulsion of digested blood from the anus) or hematemesis (fresh blood by mouth), the latter in relation erosion of the tumor in the esophageal wall.
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