Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Staging and Multimodal Therapy of Esophageal and Gastric Tumors

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Upper gastrointestinal tumors involve the tubular organs from the upper esophagus, the stomach, and the first part of the small intestine. Esophageal and gastric cancers are responsible for high rates of disease, morbidity, and mortality throughout the world. Diagnosis of these tumors involves a combination of clinical symptoms, endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound, and radiological studies. Treatment depends on input from many medical doctors including gastroenterologists, surgeons, pathologists, medical oncologists, radiologists, and radiation oncologists. Treatment may include endoscopy, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a combination of these approaches. Future directions of diagnosis may include improvements in endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound, blood testing, and tissue testing. ABSTRACT: Gastric and esophageal tumors are diverse neoplasms that involve mucosal and submucosal tissue layers and include squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, spindle cell neoplasms, neuroendocrine tumors, marginal B cell lymphomas, along with less common tumors. The worldwide burden of esophageal and gastric malignancies is significant, with esophageal and gastric cancer representing the ninth and fifth most common cancers, respectively. The approach to diagnosis and staging of these lesions is multimodal and includes a combination of gastrointestinal endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound, and cross-sectional imaging. Likewise, therapy is multidisciplinary and combines therapeutic endoscopy, surgery, radiotherapy, and systemic chemotherapeutic tools. Future directions for diagnosis of esophageal and gastric malignancies are evolving rapidly and will involve advances in endoscopic and endosonographic techniques including tethered capsules, optical coherence tomography, along with targeted cytologic and serological analyses.