A Case of Carcinoma in a Upper Thoracic Esophageal Diverticulum

Yuma Ebihara^{1) 2)}, Takaya Kusumi¹⁾, Masao Hosokawa¹⁾ and Hiroyuki Katoh²⁾

¹⁾Department of Surgery, Keiyukai Sapporo Hospital
²⁾Department of Oncologic Surgery, Hokkaido University, School of Medicine

Carcinoma of esophageal diverticular origin has rarely been reported. We report a case of esophageal carcinoma originating in the upper thoracic esophageal diverticulum, the 30^th such case reported in Japan. A 57-year-old man with appetite and weight loss was found in barium studies to have diverticulum of the upper thoracic esophagus. Endoscopy showed an elevated lesion in the esophageal diverticulum. A biopsy suggested well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma that had invaded the muscle layer, necessitating total thoracic esophagectomy through a median sternotomy and median laparotomy. The resected specimen consisted of a round elevated 3 cm lesion in the upper thoracic esophagus. The pathological diagnosis was well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma, pT3N0M0 stage II. The man was discharged on postoperative day 32. This is the second case, to our knowledge, of carcinoma arising in the upper thoracic esophageal diverticulum.

Key words
esophageal carcinoma in diverticulum, esophageal diverticulum

Reprint requests
Yuma Ebihara Department of Surgical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine Noth 15, West 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8638 JAPAN

Accepted
April 30, 2003

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