Oesophageal Carcinoma: An Atypical Presentation – A Case Report

Oesophageal Carcinoma presenting as symptoms of acute respiratory distress is extremely rare. Hence diagnosis may be difficult as all the initial investigations are focused towards finding a respiratory cause. In this paper the authors report a 62 year old Caucasian male who presented with acute dyspnoea with no respiratory history but was subsequently discovered to have an oesophageal carcinoma as the likely underlying cause. Subsequent investigations revealed it to be a stage IB squamous cell mid-oesophageal carcinoma that was treated by radiotherapy. It is important when evaluating a patient with acute respiratory symptoms but no previous respiratory history to consider alternative pathologies related to surrounding anatomical structures also.