Cancer of the digestive system is the most common cause of death among malignant neoplasms (Table 1). According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for 2008, the incidence of cancer of the digestive system was 49.2 people per 100 thousand people per year, the mortality rate was 34.3 people per 100 thousand. At a relatively low incidence rate, esophageal cancer is the seventh most common cause of death from malignant tumors, giving way to lung, breast, stomach, liver, prostate, and colon cancers. This is due to the extremely malignant nature of the course, early metastasis, and late diagnosis of esophageal cancer. The aggressiveness index, calculated as the ratio of deaths to new cases, is extremely high in esophageal cancer and is about 95%.
The absolute number of deaths from esophageal cancer in 2008 in the world was 406 thousand people. In developing countries, morbidity and mortality from esophageal cancer are significantly higher than in developed countries (Table 2). The most common two histological types of esophageal cancer are squamous cell carcinoma and esophageal adenocarcinoma. Despite the similarity of the clinical picture, diagnostic and therapeutic tactics, an extremely unfavorable prognosis for both forms of esophageal cancer, these malignant neoplasms have different risk factors, socio-geographic and ethnic characteristics, knowledge of which is necessary for the timely establishment of the diagnosis and preventive measures. Squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus (Fig. 1) is an extremely aggressive epithelial malignant tumor of stratified squamous epithelium, in most cases localized between the middle and lower third of the esophagus, the tumor is rare in the cervical esophagus.
