Anyone know something about esophageal cancer?

[NNadir]

10. My father and my uncle both died from it.

My uncle was about your friend's age when it happened.

Both my father and my uncle were heavy smokers and it is, generally, related to smoking. However there are also environmental causes. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the disease is very common in certain regions of Pakistan. Clearly however, even in the presence of irritants and toxins like tobacco smoke, there is a genetic component.

Both men had esophogeal surgery; my uncle lived about 5 years, my father less than one, after contracting the disease.

Neither man could eat very well after the surgery, and both lost tremendous amounts of weight before dying. Both also developed lung cancer toward the end; I never learned the cell types.

My uncle came to live with my father after his divorce and so I saw some of his experience first hand, as I lived with the two of them for a while. I would say that my uncle had three or four years with a decent quality of life. On the other hand, I wish my father didn't have the surgery and had simply accepted the inevitable, which he had to do in any case.

This was some time ago, and treatment options may be better than they were then.

I do not know your or your friend's (or his family's) general level of scientific understanding, but a good approach would be to go to a library and find out what the generalized prognosis is in order to make informed decisions. I only did this toward the end of my father's life, his last one or two months. I wish I had done it earlier so that I could have been a better advisor to him.

Cancer is not a single disease, and often there are several disease states even within a single tumor. Nothing is therefore cut and dry, but please accept my best wishes and condolences.