CARCINOGENESIS AND HISTOGENESIS OF ESOPHAGEAL-CARCINOMA

Dysplasia is one of the most important subjects regarding carcinogenes is of the esophagus, because there is continuing controversy as to whe ther esophageal dysplasia is a cancerous lesion or a noncancerous lesi on. In this study, it is histopathologically shown that dysplasia has a close correlation with cancer itself and that there is no substantia l difference in the cell proliferative activity of dysplasia and intra epithelial carcinoma. These findings thus show that dysplasia has as h igh a potential for malignancy, thus it should be treated as an extrem ely early cancerous lesion of the esophagus to substantially improve t he long term results of this disease. Conversely, esophageal carcinoma with glandular and/or mucus-secreting components is commonly found in addition to the ordinary component of squamous cell carcinoma, which indicates that this type of esophageal tumor originates not only from the squamous epithelium but also from the esophageal mucus gland or th e ductal epithelium. These findings support the concept of field carci nogenesis in esophageal carcinoma.