3) Chest pain
Patients with esophageal cancer would likely experience chest pain while swallowing, and even without passing food through the esophagus. During swallowing, and especially when symptoms become serious, the unpleasant feeling while passing food through the esophagus turns into chest pain and choking sensation, especially on solid foods with insufficient chewing.
When the tumor becomes large enough that food starts having trouble to get past it, patients may feel a surge of pain a few seconds after swallowing. This pain is triggered by the abnormal tissue in the esophagus struggling to force food into the small opening that is left. In some cases, patients may even report feeling stuck food for a very long time, and come to the emergency room with such uncomfortable symptoms.
On the other hand, patients may also report symptoms of acid reflux, especially a burning sensation all over the chest with an acid taste to their mouth. Sustained gastroesophageal reflux is often one of the leading conditions that trigger something called Barret’s esophagus, which may become the first step towards esophageal cancer. Not fixing this acid reflux problem would lead the patient to have this problem combined with esophagus cancer symptoms throughout the disease.
