Abstract
The materials to be presented consist of roentgenograms of 255 cases of esophageal carcinoma treated by us at the Department of Radiology of Shinshu University Hospital, and 1, 448 cases of mass survey with fluororadiography for cancer detection of the esophagus.
Carcinoma of the esophagus was found most often in patients 60 to 69 years of age, and arised most frequently in the middle and lower third of the thoracic esophagus. Our efforts have been directed toward an understanding or explanation for frequent occurrence of esophageal carcinoma in the middle and lower third of the thoracic esophagus. On the roentgenograms, kinking or buckling of the thoracic aorta due to degenerative or atherosclerotic change is followed by esophageal narrowing at the level of lower third. We call the section of the esophagus crossed by the descending aorta the “K”-point. More than one half of primary carcinoma of the esophagus developed just above the K-point.
On the photoroentgenograms of the esophagus of mass survey, 18 to 58 years of age, there is an apparent anatomical and physiological change with advancing ages producing a new physiological or functional narrowing by aortic pressure, described above as the K-point.
We have an impression that the frequent occurrence of esophageal carcinoma in the middle and lower third of the thoracic esophagus has some relation to the tortuosity and unfolding of the atherosclerotic aorta. It has occurred to us that the region of the esophagus above this functional narrowing could be a potential site for neoplasm.
