title: Radiological aspects of cancer of the esophagus.
abstract: The role radiology plays in the study of cancer of the esophagus (CE) involves three different diagnostic steps: identification of CE; staging of CE and postoperative follow-up. This study comprises 117 cases of CE, all surgically confirmed: in 57/117 CE, resection of the neoplasm with subsequent reconstruction of the digestive tract proved possible; in the remaining 60/117 non-resectable CE, a Celestin prosthetic tube was positioned. The radiological diagnosis was correct in 92.3% of the cases, the diagnostic error (9/117: 7.7%) being mainly due to under-diagnoses (6/9) rather than false negatives (3/9). Conventional radiology provided satisfactory results in the staging of CE. Among the postoperative complications in the 57 resected patients, fistulae (13/57) and mediastinal abscesses (1/57) were early complications, whereas stenosis of the anastomosis (5/57) and neoplastic recurrences (3/57) were late complications. The possible role of diagnostic delay in the poor prognosis of CE, as well as its possible causes, are discussed in this paper.
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D004947:Esophagus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D011859:Radiography