Nursing Care for Esophageal Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy in China: A Review of The Published Literature

The role of nursing care is especially significant for patients receiving radiation therapy for esophageal cancer. Esophageal cancer, including cancer arising from the gastro-esophageal junction, is a challenging disease worldwide. Recently statistics indicated that the crude incidence of esophageal cancer ranked fifth in all cancer sites with rate of 22.14/100,000 in Chinese population [1]. Radiotherapy has been widely used for treating esophageal cancer in hospitals for the past several decades in China. Complications in patients of esophageal cancer are major problems that occur during or after radiotherapy [2,3]. In spite of the variation in technologies and protocols in radiation therapy, the majority of patients will develop complications and the disease is terminal. Therefore, treatment is eventually palliative and the nurse plays a crucial role in the care of these individual. Nursing care for these patients is a very challenge task and requires a great amount of knowledge and skills patient care. Nursing research are necessary in many aspects including coordinating various support services, patient and family education, clinical assessment, nutritional management, management of side effects, and palliative care [4-17]. However, due to economic and cultural differences, nursing care and practice vary greatly in different regions and countries. Exchange and communication of the nursing research among different countries and cultures could enhance the improvement and standardization of nursing care protocols and systems, to improve the quality of patient life. These information from Chinese nursing research have not reached to abroad much because of the lacking of publications from Chinese nursing researchers.