Role of esophagoscopy in the evaluation of patients with head and neck carcinoma.

A retrospective study was conducted of 696 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck seen over a 10-year period. Special focus was placed on secondary esophageal primaries in this group in an effort to define the role of esophagoscopy in the management of these patients. Second primary esophageal lesions were infrequently encountered (17 of 696, or 2.4% of the patients). Diagnostic accuracy of the esophagogram in a series of patients with index head and neck tumors and in a separate series of patients with index esophageal lesions was found to be high (98 + %). Based upon this study, we do not feel that esophagoscopy is always indicated as part of the initial workup for all head and neck cancer patients. Rather, we consider the barium swallow esophagogram to be a relatively safe and acceptably accurate alternative in most cases, with esophagoscopy reserved for specific indications.