Oesophageal Carcinoma: An Atypical Presentation – A Case Report

Abstract

Oesophageal Carcinoma presenting as symptoms of acute respiratory distress is extremely rare. Hence diagnosis may be difficult as all the initial investigations are focused towards finding a respiratory cause. In this paper the authors report a 62 year old Caucasian male who presented with acute dyspnoea with no respiratory history but was subsequently discovered to have an oesophageal carcinoma as the likely underlying cause. Subsequent investigations revealed it to be a stage IB squamous cell midoesophageal carcinoma that was treated by radiotherapy. It is important when evaluating a patient with acute respiratory symptoms but no previous respiratory history to consider alternative pathologies related to surrounding anatomical structures also.

An Unusual Presentation of Esophageal Cancer: A Case Report and Review of Literature

“…This mechanism is commonly due to the presence of an acquired tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF), which the patient did not have. In the literature, there was a case of an esophageal cancer in a patient presenting with acute respiratory symptoms rather the chronic, without a history of respiratory disease or acquired TEF [17][18][19].…”