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New page: {{Unfinished}} * Very rare accounting for less than 0.5% of all cancer, except where ''Spirocerca lupi'' is endemic (Africa and South-eastern USA). * Most frequently reported types of neo...
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* Very rare accounting for less than 0.5% of all cancer, except where ''Spirocerca lupi'' is endemic (Africa and South-eastern USA).
* Most frequently reported types of neoplasm:
** Squamous cell carcinoma - usually appears as an annualar thickening in the middle third of the oesophagus, anterior to the heart.
** Leiomyosarcoma
** Fibrosarcoma
** Osteosarcoma
** (Plasmacytoma)
** (Local invasion of paraoesophageal tumours e.g. thryoid)
** (Leiomyoma - benign, most frequently in the caudal oesophagus and cardia)

==Signalment==
* Most are older in age
* No sex predilection
* No breed predilection

==Description==
In Africa and South-eastern USA the parasitic worm ''Spirocerca lupi'' can cause oesophageal fibrosarcomas and osteoasarcomas. This is most likely due to the parasite secreting a carcinogen. The aetiology of carcinomas in other areas is idiopathic though potentially ingestion of carcinogens may be involved.

==Diagnosis==
===History and Clinical Signs===
Indicative of partial or complete upper gastrointestinal obstruction
* Signalment as above
* Non-specific signs of general poor condition and weight loss
* Dysphagia/Pain on swallowing
* Regurgitation
* Aspiration pneumonia (secondary to regurgitation)
* Hypertrophic osteopathy as a paraneoplastic syndrome - particulary those with sarcomas with ''Spirocerca lupi'' aetiology.

==Treatment==

==Prognosis==
Often poor as are usually advanced on time of diagnosis therefore resection options are poor. In addition, metastatic rate is high: malignant tumours are locally invasive and metastasis occurs via draining lymph nodes, haematogenous spread to distant areas.
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