Introduction to the focused issue on esophageal cancer of the Journal of Thoracic Disease

Incidence of esophageal cancer is increasing all over the world with numbers around half a million of new patients every year. Concomitantly, diagnostic and treatment modalities are becoming more sophisticated and so creating the possibility for a better selecting patients for neoadjuvant therapy and surgery and so leading to a better survival. Yet, If nowadays a patient is considered resectable, his/her prognosis has increased importantly over the last 15 years.