Mayo Clinic researchers said that endoscopic therapy, a procedure is helping cancer patients from life-threatening esophageal cancer if it caught early enough. In this procedure scope is inserted into the esophagus and removes cancer cells, rather than having their esophagus removed. Research study authors examined 178 patients with early-stage esophageal cancer, of whom 132 were treated with endoscopic therapy and 46 with surgery.
Cumulative mortality in the both groups results of about 20%. Cancer came back in about 12% of the endoscopic therapy patients, but the disease could again be treated by the procedure.
According to the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Esophageal Cancer that forms in tissues lining the esophagus (the muscular tube through which food passes from the throat to the stomach). Two types of esophageal cancer are squamous cell carcinoma (cancer that begins in flat cells lining the esophagus) and adenocarcinoma (cancer that begins in cells that make and release mucus and other fluids).
The study was published in the September 2009.