Prosthetic tubes in carcinoma of the esophagus, a definite place.

arcinorna of the esophagus comprises 2 percent of all malignant tumors and 10 percent of all esophagogastrointestinal tumors. The national figures in Table 1' point out the magnitude of the problem. The treatment of this condition is palliative in some 75 percent of the cases, since at diagnosis 75 percent of the cases have regional or distant nodal metastases. In untreated patients, 75 percent die within one year of the onset of syrnp toms. The first successful resection of the esophagus was camed out by Czerny in 1877.2 Adams and Phemi~ter,~ in 1938, showed the feasibility of esophagogastrectomy. Recent series and collective reviews of the management of cancer of the esophagus continue to point up the difficulty in successful treatment and the poor longterm result^."^ Few of these emphasize the place of prosthetic tubes in this d' isease. The first successful use of an indwelling esophageal tube to maintain a lumen through &norwas described by Symonds in 1885.8 This was followed by Souttar's flexible spiral silver wire tube in 1927.9 Subsequently, tubes were described by Mackler and Meyerlo and Mosseau and colleague^.^^ Celestin,12 in 1959, modified the Mosseau-Barbin tube to an oval shaped polyethylene tube, with a detachable pilot bougie.