Esophageal tumors

1. Big picture

Esophageal tumors are clinically important because they often present late, most classically with progressive dysphagia and weight loss. The examiner mainly wants you to recognize malignant dysphagia, know the two major histological types, choose the correct diagnostic test, understand staging, and know when treatment is curative versus palliative.

Key oral exam sentence: A patient with progressive dysphagia first to solids, later to liquids, with weight loss has esophageal cancer until proven otherwise; the first diagnostic step is upper endoscopy with biopsy.