Symptoms
Symptoms in patients who have cancer of the esophagus can include difficulty swallowing, pain when swallowing, hoarseness, increased occurrence of coughing and weight loss.Swallowing disorders are most typical of the disease, but they usually occur only at an advanced stage. Oesophageal cancer is a disease that in most cases does not cause any symptoms in early stages. This makes it a very treacherous disease.
Unfortunately, this is often the case with cancer in general. A diagnosis in the early stages of esophageal cancer is almost always a chance finding. Symptoms such as difficulty swallowing and hoarseness often only appear in the advanced stages of the disease.
Signs of esophageal cancer
Cancer of the esophagus is one of the diseases that often cause symptoms only at an advanced stage. This is particularly devastating in terms of the chances of cure. The main symptom of esophageal cancer is a difficulty in swallowing (dysphagia).
This can manifest itself in various ways. For example, a feeling of pressure or a burning sensation behind the breastbone when eating or the feeling that the food is stuck. In advanced stages, the absorption of liquid substances can already become a problem due to an increasing narrowing of the esophagus by the tumor.
Hoarseness is also a symptom that patients with esophageal cancer frequently complain of. As with many other types of cancer, weight loss plays a significant role as a symptom in esophageal cancer. A symptom complex described as “B-symptomatics” includes typical unspecific symptoms that occur frequently in cancer: An unintentional weight loss of at least 10% of the original body weight within 6 months, fever above 38°C that cannot be explained in any other way, and heavy night sweats that make it necessary to change clothes. However, these B-symptoms do not only occur in cancer but also in infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. By no means all patients suffering from a malignant tumor disease exhibit this symptom complex, it occurs relatively frequently in patients suffering from lymph gland cancer.
