What are the symptoms of cancer of the esophagus? Elizabeth Tracey reports Health Newsfeed – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts

Esophagus cancer awareness month has just ended, and Richard Battafarano, director of thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins, says while some people may have this type of cancer and not know it, the majority will have a range of symptoms.

Battafarano: Well sometimes patients are feeling well and are having a routine upper endoscopy and they are found to have a tumor and when the endoscopists biopsy they're often very surprised that they even have a cancer because they feel so well. That's a small group. The vast majority of patients with surgical cancer start to notice that food is getting stuck on its way through the esophagus into the stomach and then they have associated weight loss, and those patients their symptoms is what brings them to the doctor and that's how they're official cancer is found.  :29 

Battafarano says that anyone with esophagus cancer should have complete evaluation to determine the extent of their cancer. He notes that a multidisciplinary approach to treatment is needed as treatment is complex and will likely require surgery and other modalities. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.