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Palliative Therapy in Esophageal Cancer

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The AFS Textbook of Foregut Disease

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Abstract

Early-stage esophageal cancer is often curable by endoscopic eradication therapy, but for more advanced esophageal cancers treatment options are limited and 5-year survival is poor. Patients with advanced esophageal cancers often develop dysphagia and malnutrition. For these patients, palliative therapy is often recommended. Several endoscopic therapies are available for palliation, including mechanical stenting, dilation, cryotherapy, photodynamic therapy, argon plasma coagulation, endoscopic laser ablation, endoluminal brachytherapy, endoscopic chemical therapy, and endoscopic chemotherapy. Nonendoscopic therapies also exist, including palliative radiation, systemic chemotherapy, and palliative surgeries such as esophagectomy or esophageal bypass. Each of these methods carries its own risks. This chapter discusses the staging of esophageal cancer as well as the aforementioned medical, endoscopic, and surgical palliative therapies for esophageal cancer, including the complications that can occur from each of these.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Neil Sood & Zubair Malik

  2. Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Sarah Enslin

Authors
  1. Neil Sood
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  2. Sarah Enslin
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  3. Zubair Malik
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zubair Malik .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA, USA

    Ninh T. Nguyen

  2. Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Stanford Digestive Health Clinic, Redwood City, CA, USA

    John O. Clarke

  3. Keck School of Medicine at USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    John C. Lipham

  4. Digestive Health Institute, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA, USA

    Kenneth J. Chang

  5. Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, NY, USA

    Felice Schnoll-Sussman

  6. Institute of Esophageal & Reflux Surgery, Englewood, CO, USA

    Reginald C.W. Bell

  7. Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Peter J. Kahrilas

Ethics declarations

Neil Sood (neil.sood@tuhs.temple.edu) did literature review and wrote manuscript. Sarah Enslin (sarah_enslin@urmc.rochester.edu) did literature review and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content. Zubair Malik (zubair.malik@tuhs.temple.edu) did literature review and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors approve the final version of the manuscript.

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Sood, N., Enslin, S., Malik, Z. (2023). Palliative Therapy in Esophageal Cancer. In: Nguyen, N.T., et al. The AFS Textbook of Foregut Disease. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19671-3_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19671-3_26

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-19670-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-19671-3

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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