Can smoking a lot cause esophageal cancer?

Due to many different reasons, esophageal cancer is increasing, diverse and dangerous. Smoking is one of the main causes of this condition.

Esophageal cancer is the fourth malignancy after gastrointestinal, gastric, liver, and colorectal cancers. In the early stages, most cases of the disease have very few obvious symptoms to recognize, easy to confuse with other common diseases in the esophagus and oropharynx. When clinical manifestations become obvious, it is often at a late stage, leading to many difficulties in treatment. The disease is more common in men, with the age usually over 50.

Currently, the rate of people with esophageal cancer caused by smoking is up to more than 80%, because tobacco enters the body when it affects the larynx.
The use of tobacco products, including cigars, cigarettes, pipes...is the main cause of esophageal cancer. People who smoke cigarettes a day or more have a higher risk of esophageal cancer than non-smokers. The links to esophageal cancer are even stronger. Without tobacco use, the risk of esophageal cancer will be reduced.

The most common symptom is dysphagia, at first it is often difficult to swallow but not painful, then it is difficult to swallow with pain. At first, it was only difficult to swallow with solid food, later it was difficult to swallow with liquid foods, even swallowing saliva was painful and difficult. Saliva accompanied by bad breath, belching and choking Some people will feel uncomfortable when eating. As the cancer cells spread around, the patient feels more chest pain. Due to the inability to eat and swallow, the patient suffered a marked loss of weight, dehydration, and gradually exhaustion. Patients with the disease will have mild and often slow-onset anemia, but sometimes there are obvious signs of bleeding, causing acute ischemia, when cancer has entered the aorta, which can cause bleeding into the esophagus, causing death. suddenly. A few other symptoms may be encountered when the tumor grows such as severe pressure, feeling of entanglement... Depending on the influence of the tumor on the organs of the body, different symptoms such as shortness of breath appear. , dry cough, sputum, hoarseness, nausea...

Early diagnosis of esophageal cancer is very important. Patients need periodic health check-ups, screening in subjects at high risk of this disease. When there are any suspicious signs, patients should immediately go to specialized facilities for examination and early diagnosis. The diagnosis of esophageal cancer is based on the symptoms of the disease combined with an X-ray of the esophagus and other tests. For an early and accurate diagnosis of this disease, patients need to undergo endoscopy combined with ultrasound and biopsy.
X-ray: X-ray of the esophagus should be done in the supine position. When performing this method, it is possible to see a hard image of the esophagus or a narrow image of the esophageal lumen, which can be seen as a tumor. Density tomography method: this method helps in early diagnosis and higher accuracy than X-ray, especially when cancer cells have spread into the esophageal wall. In addition, density tomography also detects metastases into the mediastinum. Perform endoscopy: Esophageal endoscopy with biopsy is a mandatory test in case X-ray cannot identify the disease. This method helps doctors assess the extent of the cancer and the nature of the tumor. Besides, the combination of endoscopy and combing cytology gives high cancer positive results in over 90% of cases. Performing endoscopic ultrasound: This method helps to diagnose the depth of tumor infiltrating the esophageal wall, and at the same time evaluate the invasion of cancer into the esophageal lymph nodes. The rate of people suffering from cancer is increasing, the early diagnosis of the disease will help doctors have timely treatment and reduce costs for patients. Currently, Vinmec is implementing a screening package for cancer of the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus - stomach - colon) to prevent esophageal cancer, avoiding factors that cause high cancer risk.