This oesophagael cancer overview and associated articles will give you everything you need to know to help you increase your personal odds of beating oesophagael cancer - the symptoms, the diagnosis and all the latest options on treatments and therapies - from cancer drugs and chemotherapy to surgery, radiotherapy and complementary therapies; including all the very latest alternative and new therapies and information. We will even cover the causes.

This article has been compiled by  Chris Woollams from worldwide research and expert sources.*

Read the whole article below or just select the part(s) that you are interested in from the list below and click onto that page. 

• Introduction
• Oesophagael Cancer Inflammation and Irritation
• Warning signs
• Putting together a treatment plan
• Possible Contributory factors
• Probable Scenario
• What can you do?
• Other Forms of Cancer of the Oesophagus
• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Other treatments, therapies and tips.

Introduction

I was speaking at a big conference on the West Coast of the USA, to about 3,500 people. At the lunch break a Professor came up to me and asked, Can you help me? I get terrible acid reflux. And I dont know what to do the antacids seem no help at all.

My reply was simple: You are tackling the symptoms not the real problem. Youve almost certainly got Helicobacter Pylori a parasitic bacterium in your stomach. Start by taking (sipping dont just slug it down) Aloe Vera first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Cut alcohol after about 8 pm never have a last drink before bed, cut sugar, dairy, pickles (vinegar) and salt the first two because they feed it, the last two because they change the stomach pH and help it thrive. Dont use an alcohol-based mouthwash. Take Goldenseal and Bismuth (Bisodol will do) and even try some Neways Parafree for two months and two weeks of Wormwood.  Apart from the Bisodol, do not take any antacids the acid is your stomach trying to kill the parasite off!

Three months later I received an e-mail: Youre a star acid reflux all gone.

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Oesophagael Cancer Inflammation and Irritation

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Oesophagael cancer is growing rapidly in the UK and is very dangerous. There are definitely commonalities with Stomach (Gastro-intestinal) cancer and you should take a look at that site as well.

The oesophagus is also called the Gullet and is about 12 inches long. The main type of oesophagael cancer in the Western World is called an adenocarcinoma. A precursor to this may be Barretts oesophagus which is the formation of abnormal cells at the lower end of the oesophagus.  These abnormal cells are caused by splash back or acid reflux where the liquid mixture of foods and enzymes and acid splash up from the stomach. About 1 per cent of UK adults have Barretts. And about 1 in 100 cases of Barretts eventually become oesophagael cancer.  But the widely held view in the UK as read in cancer web sites is that the cause of this cancer is acid reflux.  Be clear this is not a cause but a symptom of something deeper seated. And often a factor you can do something about.

Oesophagael cancer is more prevalent in older men, especially those who smoke and drink (spirits mainly). There seems to be no hereditary link. 

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Warning signs

You may experience the following early warning symptoms:

• Acid Reflux
• Bloating after eating
• Indigestion or stomach discomfort.
• Feeling slightly sick
• Loss of appetite.
• Heartburn.

As the disease progresses, so do the signs:

•  Stomach pain.
•  Trouble swallowing
•  Actually being sick
•  Weight loss for no known reason.
•  Blood in stools

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Putting together a treatment plan

Fret not there is so much you can do mostly to help yourself. When my daughter developed her brain tumour and was given just 6 months to live we found out so many things that could help but it took at least 6 months hard work and a pair of science degrees. The aim of this site is to short circuit all this for you and to empower you to pass on all our knowledge, our research findings, the expert studies and the possible causes so that others can benefit immediately. This is also why, when the doctors asked me, I gladly wrote Everything you need to know to help you beat cancer. The book has been a best seller in the UK for three years and you cannot even buy it in a shop only direct from the charity via Natural Selection´s shop - click on the tab at the top of the page!!
Now, lets first try to understand what is going on, and what factors might be maintaing this cancer, helping it progress in your body.

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Possible Contributory factors:

Smoking seems to increase the risk of this cancer, as does the statistic of being male and being older.

Hereditary factors make some people more likely to develop polyps in their stomach.

Certain disorders like pernicious anaemia, gastritis and other irritable stomach problems are often blamed, as is Barretts oesophagus, a condition where abnormal, non-cancerous cells develop on the joining area between stomach and oesophagus. Eventually these can become cancerous.

The real issue is what causes these inflammations and irritations in the first place? What makes these problems more acute? What irritates the situation further, or are they enough on their own to turn into cancer?

I am sure there could be many factors. We dealt with a lady patient at CANCERactive who had been prescribed the drug Diclofenac sodium (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) for over ten years, when the directive for the drug clearly states it should not be prescribed for more than 6 months.  Why did the doctor not stop to think what might have been causing the inflammation in the stomach (and the acid reflux) in the first place???

In icons Cancer Watch pages over the last 5 years we have covered a number of worldwide research studies on possible causes/contributory factors:

1)  Your stomach as with your intestines holds a finely balanced group of bacteria. Roughly 800 different strains are known to live inside your body; about 400 have been identified; there are approximately 100 clinical trials and about 4000 research studies in the last 4 years on them. You should read our two articles Beneficial Bacteria and Beneficial Bacteria and Colorectal cancer  to better understand these crucial contributors to your health they develop your immune system; they help digest your food for you; they actually help synthesise important vitamins and fatty acids; they help eliminate unwanted toxins and hormones; and importantly, they protect you from microbes, nasty bacteria and other unwanted invaders.

Sadly, we treat them very badly. If the good guys become out of balance with the bad guys you will observe symptoms like bloating, stomach irritation, wind, acid reflux, abdominal pain, even nausea. Oh, and just about every sign that indicates Oesophagael cancer too. We also make matters worse for ourselves:

• We eat carbohydrates mixed up with protein on the same plate and in the same mouthful. But carbohydrate mixes with an enzyme called ptyalin in your mouth and needs alkali in your stomach for good digestion. Protein mixes with the enzyme pepsin in your stomach and this demands acid to work properly. Result: Confusion and an insipid mixture in the stomach. While carbohydrates take about an hour to pass through if eaten on their own, and protein takes about 90 minutes, the combination of the two might not fully leave the stomach for eight hours!
• As we age we, anyway, make less stomach acid, weakening our digestion. Stress worsens this as does a variety of foods from nitrites and nitrates (eg. in pesticides, and dried meats), to excess salt (in processed and packaged foods) to the ubiquitous antacids for indigestion and heartburn. What no one ever seems to do is ask, Why do I have the acid in the first place?
• Then, we consume all manner of friendly bacteria killers from drugs like antibiotics and steroids, to chlorinated water and antibiotics in our chickens.
• And, unlike 199 years ago when we ate more fermented foods and lived in primarily rural environments, we do not add new top-up levels each day. Worse, our Governments and health authorities actually prevent us for example, by banning raw milk, and pasteurisation, and irradiation of foods.

Acid levels and lactobacillus acidophilus are essential for keeping one particularly dangerous stomach bacteria, helicobacter pylori, in check.

2)  For about 10 years it has been known that Helicobacter Pylori contributes to stomach ulcers. And for about 5 years the same has been true about stomach cancer. The researchers do get a little confused sometimes between cause and effect.

For example: There have been research reports saying that people with stomach cancer have low vitamin B-12 levels, or low folic acid levels and well they might: A lack of beneficial bacteria in the gut will reduce production levels of certain B vitamins

Other reports (For example from the European Cancer Centre IARC in Lyon) talk about nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines being causal. For example this report: Scientists from 19 countries, at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon (IARC) have concluded that high nitrite levels (especially in conjunction with low vitamin C levels) are linked to carcinogenicity.  Links with stomach cancer, oesophageal cancer and brain tumours were especially noted. The working group were especially concerned with the run-off of fertilisers into surface and well water.  Nitrites and nitrates may have a direct cancer effect or promote the by-products of cyanobacteria in the soil and water.  By-products such as microcystins and nodularins are cyclic peptides and are toxins produced when the bacteria die.  These toxins accumulate in fish and shellfish, for example.  Significant evidence also linking these toxins to liver cancer was found.

True, nitrites and nitrates come from pesticides but they are also present in dried and smoked meats and fish, including sausages and pates and these have been linked many times to stomach problems, irritations and stomach cancer. And so have nitrosamines commonly formed by burning meat on the barbeque, they are now even found in personal toiletry products. But - Beneficial Bacteria have been shown in clinical trials to neutralise these toxic chemicals for you in the gut.

3)  Too much salt in the diet (the Japanese have linked a doubling of intake with a doubling of risk of stomach problems) and the consumption of large amounts of pickled products (again Japanese research well they do have high levels of stomach cancer!) are also linked. But salt and vinegar will greatly alter the stomach and intestinal pH levels, and this will favour some bacteria, whilst reducing the effectiveness of the normal beneficial ones, allowing Helicobacter Pylori to survive.

4)  Some researchers have linked all hard tumour cancers to prior inflammation. And to localised oestrogen levels. There are a whole set of reasons that you may have too much oestrogen in your body from being overweight, to taking hormone pills like HRT, to consuming fatty meat (the fat can hold pesticides and chemicals that can mimic the action of oestrogen in the body; and the animals own oestrogens too), or using a whole host of household chemicals and toiletry products that contain xeno-oestrogens - chemicals that once inside the body can mimic oestrogen). You should read the Four Pillars of cancer, especially pillar 2

5)  And then came Wang: Professor Wang of British Columbia and his team in November 2004. They issued a research study under the heading of Revolutionary new thinking saying that cancer textbooks needed to be torn up for they had discovered how cancers are really formed! In their research they had looked at problems in the stomach lining. When the stomach lining becomes irritated and damaged, stem cells from the bone marrow rush round to repair it. Stem cells are the original foetal cells they are blank cells and can develop into any cell you need from retinal eye cells to liver cells to stomach wall cells. However Wang found that in the presence of too much oestrogen, the stem cells do not turn into (Official word: Differentiate) new stomach lining cells but stay as rapidly dividing stem cells, and thus a rapidly dividing colony of cancer cells develops. Now, Im sure Wang is right but it is just one of the ways a cancer can form, not the only way as he seemed to be implying.

But In Clinical Trials Beneficial Bacteria have been shown to neutralise Oestrogen and help eliminate it from the body.

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Probable Scenario

Irritation and inflammation in the stomach cause splash back or acid reflux.

One possible cause of this irritation and inflammation is Helicobacter Pylori, which hides from your stomach acid by diving into the mucosal membrane and taking up a position next to the stomach lining where it eats and thrives and emits waste toxins. Your body is not impressed and so it sends out immune cells to attack and digest this foreigner. But theres a slight problem. The forces of light and the forces of evil are on opposite sides of the stomach lining. The white cells cant get at the Helicobacter Pylori cells. Much irritation and inflammation then occurs. The body can produce more acid to try and rid itself of the problem. The whole stomach becomes more sensitive, and so certain food, alcohol and stress can bring on the acid reflux.

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What can you do?

Before scalpels are drawn, there are definitely things you might try:

1)  A VEGA check will inexpensively tell you whether Helicobacter Pylori or any other foreigner/unwanted irritant is present. Your Doctor can also do a stool test but he has to tell the lab technicians exactly what to look for. There are other parasites that can infect the stomach and bowels. (eg Shegela from South East Asia and increasingly available with exotic and imported foods. No holiday to foreign parts necessary!). A VEGA check will tell you if anything is unusual, and even what food allergies you have too.

2)  If anything abnormal is detected your doctor will have the necessary cocktails of drugs. Those preferring to treat themselves should consider the following Package:

• Sip Aloe Vera  first thing in the morning and last thing at night it contains about half a dozen anti-inflammatories to help calm things down
• Take Goldenseal best to get a Naturopath to prescribe it but a double dose from a high street bottle would be a reasonable place to start. Bismuth is also useful you might try the proprietary Bisodol.
• Take Garlic  supplement, first thing in the morning and last thing at night with cold water. Chop fresh garlic on your salads
• Supplement with a multi-strain probiotic For example Neways Advanced Probiotic and/or Prebiota 7 from your High Street. You need 6 or more strains and definitely L. Acidophilus. 16 billion a day.
• For added Insurance, take a two month course of Neways Parafree, and add two weeks of Wormwood. The herbs oregano and Pau Darco plus Caprylic Acid (coconut) can also kill yeasts and microbes.
• Plan a careful Diet and eating programme using the above points and looking at our Diet Section  under Complementary and Alternative Treatment Therapies
• Cut excess Oestrogen: You could try reading our book,Oestrogen the killer in our midst.

Other Forms of Cancer of the Oesophagus

Squamous carcinomas are also on the increase and seem to be linked to smoking and heavy drinking, particularly of spirits. Israeli research from the Technion Institute shows that saliva mixed with smoking by-products forms a very dangerous chemical mix.

Conditions such as achalasia where a sphincter controlling the opening of the gullet to the stomach, doesnt open fully and food materials may build up there.

Diagnosis

Professor Gareth Williams and Dr Kai Stoeber of UCLs Wolfsen Institute have developed a test using fluid samples from the oesophagus and is 85 per cent accurate for the specific diagnosis of Oesophagael cancer. This is much needed as at the moment the testing is for general signs of non-specific cancer, and the cancer is rarely caught at an early stage resulting in only 8 per cent 5-year survival figures. When diagnosis catches the cancer early, and chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used, claims of 80 per cent 5-year survival are made.

The usual diagnosis is made in one of three ways:

Barium meal more a swallow than a meal. This white, chalky liquid is swallowed and X-rays taken to track the trouble spots

Endoscopy where a tube with a light and a camera on the end is passed down the throat. A local anaesthetic will be used more uncomfortable than painful. The cameras image shows up on a TV monitor. A few sample cells may be taken at the same time for analysis under a microscope this is called a biopsy.

A CT scan - You lie on your back and go into a chamber. The scan takes about 10 minutes and involves multi-dimensional X-rays giving a 3D picture to pin point tumours and to obtain a bigger picture about possible spread to nearby tissues. You may be given an injection probably containing iodine to better show up the hot spots in your stomach. If so the doctor must discuss your possible allergy to iodine.

The Doctors will then tell you whether it is Upper, Middle or Lower oesophagael cancer, to describe location

They will tell you the Stage or how far it has progressed. Stage 1 is no spread whereas Stage 4 means there is spread beyond the oesophagus to other organs.

And they will tell you the Grade or how aggressive it is. Grade 1 is a slow growing cancer, while Grade 4 is the fastest.

Treatment

Cancers are very individual, and so is the treatment programme. It may depend upon the location of the tumour, its spread and your health amongst other factors.

1 Surgery: Cuts may be made in the abdomen, chest and/or neck. It is important to be clear just how much tissue is to be removed and what the implications are afterwards, for example for swallowing and eating. Quite frequently the upper part of the stomach may be removed too, plus the adjacent lymph nodes. Surgery cannot always be used due to size and location of the tumour or to your personal health. Sometimes the tumour grows around nerves, which can be both painful and surgery limiting. However it is the most common treatment for this cancer. A list of questions to use as a basic guide is contained in Everything you need to know to help you beat cancer.

Three forms of surgery are used:

An oesophagectomy: for early stage cancers - where the affected parts and the nearby lymph nodes are removed, and the remaining oesophagus is reconnected to the stomach so you can still swallow.

An oesophagogastrectomy: where there is a need to remove part of the stomach too, along with nearby lymph nodes. The remaining oesophagus is reattached to the remaining stomach so food can continue to pass from the throat to the stomach. Sometimes a piece of your own colon is used to connect the oesophagus to the stomach.

Laser Surgery: is used in the USA to attack blockages. Using a version of the Endoscope along with a laser beam, portions of a tumour causing a blockage can be removed, avoiding the need for external cuts.

2 Radiotherapy: This may be external radiotherapy, where treatment is given every weekday for between 3 and 6 weeks. You should read our articles on Radiotherapy  especially a quick guide on how to maximize the effectiveness.
Sometime internal radiotherapy is used where radioactive materials (put in place by an endoscope or a similar tube) rest in the tumour area. The side effects are the usual ones for radiotherapy including nausea, lowered blood cell count, and possible hair loss. Radiotherapy is usually used where the surgeon is uncertain that he cleared away all the cancer cells.

3 Chemotherapy: This may be used before surgery to reduce the size of the tumour and make it more manageable.

More usually it is given after surgery
a) To kill off all remaining cancer cells to try to prevent return of the cancer
b) To treat any spread of the cancer to other tissues

Capecitabine, cisplatin and fluorouracil are the most favoured drugs and often used in combination. However, according to the Lancet Oncology Vol 7, July 2006, in a randomised trial with 1002 patients, results showed that capecitabine could replace fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin could replace cisplatin. In the US Sloan Kettering is studying paclitaxel, in particular, which is showing promising results when used alone or in combination with cisplatin. Some tumours already show signs of developing resistance to paclitaxel.

For information on your Cancer Drugs and chemotherapy click here. You can also look into a diet to maximize the chemotherapy  on this web site. However you must ask your doctor and a Nutritionist specifically about Diet as some conditions and treatments demand a liquid only diet. 

Other treatments, therapies and tips.

Where the cancer is in an advanced state, and/or after treatments you may have side effects, pain, difficulty in swallowing, nausea and fatigue. You must ask for help. The Doctors will have drugs for most if not all of these conditions.

Photodynamic Therapy: was originally used mostly for palliative care reducing the symptoms of both the orthodox treatments and the cancer in later stages. It then moved on to being used with Barretts and to shrink some blockages. Now several US centers are looking at its use as a basic treatment. It has few side effects and originally involved a chemical agent, which finds its way to the cancer. Then light of a certain frequency is shone on that agent to produce an oxygen free-radical which kills the cancer cell. For many years this treatment was hampered by the need for the tumour to be near the body surface in order to deliver the light. Recently there have been huge advances in the agents (many are now natural), lasers and delivery mechanisms, making the treatment increasingly effective for many cancers. We have several articles on PDT. 

Treatment for anaemia: Managing and counteracting anaemia can reduce death from anaemia by 50 per cent. Research published by the Cochrane Collaboration showed that epoetins (alfa and beta epoetin) show significant survival benefits. Particularly striking were the results for patients with solid tumours (Breast, lung, colon, ovarian) where risk of death decreased by 51 per cent) In a second study (European Soc. For Medical Oncology- 31st Oct 2005) epotin beta was shown to reduce risk of tumour progression in patients with anaemia 

Treatment for fatigue: icon has run several pieces on fatigue. A qualified naturopath will be able to suggest dietary changes to boost energy levels. Qualified homeopaths may be able to suggest ways to counter fatigue. Energy therapists ( eg. acupuncture, cranial osteopaths, Reiki Masters) may well be able to help. Italian research showed a lack of acetyl-carnitine   which supplementation could correct. UCLA scientist report that a series of genetic markers become blocked either due to the cancer or due to the chemotherapy treatment. The California team note promising results with Etanercept. Apparently 30 per cent of women who have had chemo for breast cancer have long-term fatigue, even after the cancer has gone. This may well be true for other cancers.
 
The British Journal of Cancer 2006; 94 1568-71 reports on research from the Glasgow Royal infirmary. Apparently patients with higher levels of CRP protein pre-surgery have poorer survival outcomes. Donald Macmillan says it is indicative of higher levels of inflammation and an impaired T-lymphocyte response. The research implies that patients with high CRP levels should not undergo surgery.

NB: Although we always try to write in easy-to-understand words, you may find that some web sites, information leaflets, Doctors and Nurses use words that are not as easy to understand. For that reason we have compiled a list of all the technical words they commonly use called DOCTORSPEAK, the list turns it all into simple, easy to understand English. You can find this list of words by clicking here.

Memorial Sloan Kettering is working on a new class of drugs that offer another promising avenue of investigation: Tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (such as SU5416 and OSI-774) are drugs involving small biologic molecules that directly attack tumour cells at the molecular level.
You might decide that drugs and chemotherapy are not for you. You might want to look into Diet therapies  on this site you will find all the details about the famousGerson Therapy, or Dr Gonzalez in New York, who has clinical trials to support his diet and supplement therapy.
You might simply want to look at diet to support your orthodox treatments  we have that too. We even have a book, The Tree of life the anti-cancer Diet which gives you lots of information, even a shopping trolley of foods to buy! We even have articles on which herbs  are known to make a difference.
You might want to look for the best supplements to take not merely antioxidants but proven cancer fighters like vitamin D, Fish oils, total vitamin E, curcumin and probiotics   all of which just could make a difference. If you are looking for supplements click on the tab at the top of the page and go to the Natural Selection shop where they have selected the best of the best and you can buy with confidence.

You may want to look at how daily light exercise can help (some research says it cuts mortality by up to 50 per cent). Then there are clinical trials on meditation. You can access our kiddies guide  to everything from massage to yoga.
Then there are energy therapies like acupuncture. People with cancer always have an imbalance in their body energy. It is relatively easy to fix and get it working for you again.
Finally you might want to try Hands on Healing, or even pay a visit to John of God. Hes free you just have to get to Brazil. He doesnt cure people, God does. We do know people who went who were very impressed.
On this web site you will find more information about more treatment options (Complementary and Alternative, not just Orthodox), and on more possible contributory factors to the development and maintenance of your cancer, than on any other UK cancer web site. Some experts believe that approaching your cancer in this total way can increase an individuals chances of survival by as much as 60 per cent.
 
This is all supported by the very latest research evidence from all over the world in our news section Cancer Watch.
 
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