To date, no therapy has been proven superior to esophagectomy for the cure of patients with early-stage esophageal cancer. The primary goal of surgery is complete (R0) resection of the tumor to maximize the opportunity for cure and minimize the…
The first reports of minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) were published in the early 1990s by Cuschieri et al., who described a thoracoscopic esophageal mobilization in 1992, and DePaula et al., who reported an MIE with a laparoscopic transhiatal approach in 1995. The…
Surgical Therapy Surgical resection remains the cornerstone of therapy for patients with resectable cancer of the esophagus in the absence of systemic metastases. Surgery, most of the time combined with neoadjuvant therapy in current practice, offers the highest likelihood of…
Esophageal cancer (EC) remains a devastating malignancy with a low rate of cure. Results in patients with early-stage disease (stage I to II) remain more promising, with long-term survival rates between 60% and 90%. Unfortunately the majority of patients present…
The detection and treatment of high-grade dysplasia and early esophageal cancer overlap to the point that they are a continuum. In some situations they can be difficult to separate and exist simultaneously. Because existing studies often combine the descriptions of…
Epidemiology The incidence of esophageal cancer has increased in recent decades, with an estimated 17,990 new cases in the United States in 2013. Histologically, in the United States esophageal adenocarcinoma is the fastest-growing subtype, surpassing the incidence of esophageal squamous…
Esophageal cancer accounts for 1% of new cancer diagnoses in the United States annually and 2.6% of cancer-related deaths. An estimated 0.5% of men and women will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer at some point during their lifetime. The two…
Compared with the general population, patients with Barrett esophagus (BE) have a higher risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) with the risk increasing in those patients who develop dysplasia—low-grade dysplasia (LGD) or high-grade dysplasia (HGD). In the past, patients with…
The British surgeon Norman Barrett is famously credited for his early description of the lower esophagus lined by columnar epithelium. However, he himself did not claim to be the first to describe the condition that would later bear his name.…
Prevalence and Incidence of Barrett Esophagus Barrett esophagus (BE) is the disease in which the normal squamous lining of the distal esophagus is replaced by a metaplastic columnar cell epithelium (termed intestinal metaplasia [IM]) in response to chronic severe gastroesophageal…