The Salgi Esophageal Cancer Research Foundation

The Journal of Clinical Oncology recently published a new international study which shows that most patients who survive for at least five years after having esophageal cancer surgery recover to an “average quality of life.” 

For one in six patients, the quality of life significantly deteriorates to “a level that remains much lower then the average population in the five years after surgery.” 

Researchers suggest that hospitals “be better at identifying” those who suffer a deteriorated quality of life post-surgery.

Principal investigator Pernilla Lagergren says “the patients who show early signs of impaired quality of life should be identified and helped through a more intensive follow-up to avoid a persistently low quality of life.” 

Lagergren is professor of surgical care sciences at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

To download a copy of the study click here: 

“Health-related quality of life among 5-year survivors of esophageal cancer surgery – a prospective population-based study”, Maryam Derogar and Pernilla Lagergren. Published online before print January 3, 2012.

Christopher Hitchens was influential yet contorversial, a writer, journalist, atheist and esophageal cancer sufferer.  Hitchens passed away on December 15, 2011 of pneumonia after struggling with esophageal cancer since June of 2010. 

“I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient,” BBC News reported that he wrote in an August 2010 Vanity Fair essay.

To read more about Hitchens and his struggle with esophageal cancer, click here.

To read Vanity Fair’s “Toast” to Hitchens, click here.

CBC News reported earlier this week that “Overall cancer incidence and death rates fell between 2004 and 2008, according to a new U.S. report.”  One million deaths from cancer were said to be avoided.  

However, the report also shows that “certain cancers have increased over the past 10 years.”  On the list of cancers on the rise is esophageal adenocarcinoma. 

The article states that “researchers believe the increase in esophageal adenocarcinoma and cancers of the pancreas, liver, and kidney may be caused by rising rates of obesity, which may prevent cancers from being detected in their earliest stages.”

To read more click here