Mr. Wu, who is 52 years old this year, has been feeling dry and itchy recently. At first, he thought it was a throat discomfort caused by frequent drinking and smoking, but he didn't pay much attention to it, but just ate some throat lozenges to relieve the discomfort.
However, after a period of time, the symptoms did not improve, but there was a more pronounced foreign body sensation in the pharynx, and the cough could not be coughed out, and the swallowing was not smooth.
Considering that he might be suffering from chronic pharyngitis, Mr. Wu immediately went to the ENT department. After understanding the situation, the doctor recommended him to undergo a gastroscopy, which unexpectedly diagnosed him with esophageal cancer.
Faced with the results of this examination, Mr. Wu has always been unacceptable, shouldn't it just be ordinary pharyngitis? How can it be esophageal cancer?
Esophageal cancer occurs mainly in men over the age of 50. In the early stages, patients may experience the following abnormal symptoms:
1.There is always a foreign body in the throat: Many people mistake this feeling for laryngitis. However, this abnormality can also be one of the early manifestations of esophageal cancer. Compared with laryngitis, people with esophageal cancer feel a stronger foreign body sensation when eating and have more difficulty swallowing.
2.The throat is tight and dry: When the body is dehydrated, the discomfort in the throat usually disappears after replenishing water. However, in patients with esophageal cancer, this discomfort persists no matter how much water is supplemented.
3.Poor swallowing: A healthy and normal person will not feel any abnormality in the throat when eating. Once esophageal cancer occurs, patients will feel extreme discomfort when swallowing food, and swallowing will feel impaired.
4.Pain in swallowing: In the early stages of esophageal cancer, as long as there is a movement to swallow or drink, the throat area will be accompanied by obvious pain, which is similar to the symptoms of tonsil inflammation.
Esophageal cancer may be "eaten", or it may be caused by a variety of other factors, and the most common clinical ** are as follows:
1.Hot food, hot drinks
The process of swallowing food until it enters the stomach takes about 9 seconds. When the temperature of the food eaten is too high, it can cause burns to the esophageal mucosa and cause necrosis of the tissue cells. Therefore, repeated injuries from long-term exposure to hot foods and beverages can increase the risk of esophageal cancer.
2.Pickled food
Preserved foods contain high levels of nitrites, which can be converted into nitrosamines, which are highly carcinogenic chemicals that increase the risk of esophageal cancer.
3.Familial inheritance
Clinical findings show that esophageal cancer has obvious familial clustering. Therefore, people with a family history of the disease should be screened and retested regularly.
4.Smoking and drinking
Needless to say, the damage of tobacco and alcohol to the body is not to be repeated, and similarly, the bad habits of smoking and drinking alcohol may also increase the risk of esophageal cancer.
1.Gastroscopy or esophagoscopy
It is of great value in the diagnosis of esophageal cancer, enabling direct visualization of cancers and tumor biopsies to obtain pathological diagnosis. It has a diagnostic yield of up to 80%.
2.Barium swallow of the digestive tract
It can only be shown when the lesion has undergone a marked anatomical morphological change. However, the positive rate of diagnosis of early esophageal cancer is low, with an accuracy rate of only about 50%. Therefore, X-ray imaging alone cannot be used as a stand-alone diagnostic method for early esophageal cancer.
3.Endoscopic ultrasound
It is a new type of technique that combines endoscopy with ultrasound technology. Histological features of the esophageal wall can be obtained by endoscopic direct observation of morphological changes in the esophageal lumen and simultaneous real-time ultrasound scanning.