Introduction:

Advanced esophageal cancer is one of the most aggressive neoplasms with high morbidity and mortality. Botswana ranks 14th in the world for deaths from this disease.

Objective:

To determine the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with advanced esophageal cancer at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana.

Method:

A prospective-descriptive study was carried out, where 45 patients with endoscopic and histological diagnosis of advanced esophageal cancer were characterized clinically and pathologically, from January to September 2019.

Results:

Males predominated (86.7%), and also patients older than 60 years (60.0%). Dysphagia, anorexia and weight loss were the most frequent symptoms, and prevailed patients with three to six months between the appearance of symptoms and endoscopic diagnosis; inadequate diet, chronic alcoholism, and smoking were the predominant risk factors. The most frequent anatomical location was the middle third (51.1%), the predominant endoscopic type was the vegetative (46.7%) and most of the patients presented the histological type squamous cell carcinoma (95.6%) well differentiated (84.4%).

Conclusions:

The study of the clinical-pathological characteristics of patients with advanced esophageal cancer allows its correct staging, being a useful tool in the multidisciplinary assessment of treatment due to its complex clinical and institutional management.

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