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Abstract Most patients with oesophageal carcinoma have disease advanced beyond hope of curative treatment at the time of presentation. Palliation of incurable carcinoma is important, because radical ablation carries a high mortality uccessful Laser therapy can give high-quality palliation with complete relief of dysphagia. We regard endoscopic laser therapy as the treatment of choice for short exophytic tumors, but when the malignancy is long and requiring multiple laser treatments to recanalize, considerable fibrosis can result, and it may be preferable to palliate by insertion of another method as an l~ndoprosthesis in a single session. The results of cthis study are encouraging, it should be stressed that f:ndoscopic laser therapy should not be viewed as being in competition with other modalities example: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, dilatation, and :’itents. More likely it will serve in a complementary role. In this study all 36 patients showed endoscopic and clinical improvement with Nd- Y AG laser therapy. Relief of symptoms occurred in a relatively short time. In some of the patients the quality of life was dramatically improved and most left the hospital early. This is particularly important because patients with oesophageal carcinoma often spend a long time in the hospital. |