Can Esophagitis Turn Into Cancer? Experts Weigh In On Kim Kardashian’s Diagnosis & Key Info For Patients

Given her dad’s history, it’s understandable that Kim, and anyone else with esophagitis and a family connection to the disease, might wonder whether the diagnosis signals a higher risk of cancer. To help separate worry from fact, SurvivorNet spoke with Dr. Raja Flores, Chairman of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, about what esophagitis does and doesn’t mean for a person’s cancer risk.

According to Dr. Flores, the answer depends less on the diagnosis itself and more on what’s causing it. “The underlying cause is much more important than the word ‘esophagitis’ itself,” he explains, adding that most people with esophagitis will never go on to develop esophageal cancer.

“Esophagitis simply means inflammation of the lining of the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach. The most common cause is acid reflux, or GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease], but there are other causes, including certain medications, infections and eosinophilic esophagitis, which is an immune-mediated condition often associated with allergies. So when someone says they have esophagitis, that diagnosis alone does not tell us why they have it,” he explains.

He adds, “I would not want someone to hear the word ‘esophagitis’ and immediately think “cancer.” Esophagitis is common, and the majority of people with it do not have and will not develop esophageal cancer. What matters is why the esophagus is inflamed, how long the problem has been present and whether there are changes such as Barrett’s esophagus or dysplasia. The goal is to identify the relatively small group of patients who need closer evaluation or surveillance.”

The real concern, Dr. Flores explains, is long-term acid reflux. In some patients, years of reflux can alter the cells lining the esophagus, a condition called Barrett’s esophagus. Barrett’s is considered a precursor to esophageal adenocarcinoma, one of the two main types of esophageal cancer. Still, Dr. Flores emphasizes that even most people with Barrett’s won’t go on to develop cancer. The other main type, squamous cell carcinoma, follows a different path and is usually linked to smoking rather than reflux.

For people living with chronic reflux or esophagitis, especially those with a family history like Kim’s, the next logical question is when it makes sense to go beyond managing symptoms and actually take a look inside the esophagus.

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An upper endoscopy, which uses a thin camera to examine the lining of the esophagus, isn’t automatic for everyone with reflux. Dr. Flores says doctors become more inclined to recommend one when reflux has been present for years, when someone has multiple risk factors for Barrett’s esophagus, or when warning symptoms appear.

Those red flags include difficulty or pain when swallowing, gastrointestinal bleeding, unexplained weight loss or anemia, and persistent vomiting, all of which, he says, “deserve evaluation rather than simply being attributed to reflux.”

Screening For Esophageal Cancer

“Routine screening of the general population is not currently recommended. Current guidelines focus primarily on identifying Barrett’s esophagus in people at increased risk. Upper endoscopy remains the traditional approach, but newer, less invasive methods are being developed and evaluated,” Dr. Flores tells SurvivorNet.

“These include swallowable devices that collect cells from the esophagus, which can then be tested for biomarkers associated with Barrett’s esophagus. These approaches are promising because they could potentially make screening easier and more accessible, but they have not replaced endoscopy as the standard diagnostic test.”

Examples include EsoCheck and Cytosponge, minimally invasive, office-based sampling tools that offer scalable alternatives to endoscopy, according to PubMed Central.

According to Dr. Flores, guidelines focus on people at increased risk, with the goal of catching Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition that increases a person’s risk of esophageal cancer, and any precancerous changes that may develop within it.

So who falls into that higher-risk group? Dr. Flores says risk rises “when several factors occur together,” including longstanding GERD, older age, being male, obesity, a history of smoking, and a family history of Barrett’s esophagus or esophageal adenocarcinoma. For patients who have already been diagnosed with Barrett’s, whether dysplasia, or abnormal cell growth, is present helps doctors determine how closely they need to be monitored going forward.

RELATED: If You Have Acid Reflux You’re Twice As Likely To Get Cancer of The Esophagus, Research Shows

Dr. Flores also points out a common misconception: that reflux, esophagitis, Barrett’s and cancer are steps on an inevitable path. In reality, millions of people have reflux without ever developing Barrett’s, and most people with Barrett’s never develop cancer. Targeted screening exists to find the smaller group of patients in whom precancerous changes do occur, giving doctors a chance to intervene before cancer takes hold.

Warning Signs Not to Ignore

When it comes to symptoms that should prompt a conversation with a doctor, Dr. Flores says persistent or worsening heartburn is always worth bringing up.

However, “the symptoms that particularly concern us,” he explains, include trouble or pain when swallowing, the feeling of food getting stuck, bleeding, ongoing vomiting, and unexplained anemia or weight loss. Even a shift in someone’s usual reflux symptoms, he adds, can be a meaningful sign.

Some symptoms of esophageal cancer can easily be mistaken for everyday reflux. Dr. Flores notes that early signs are often subtle, and chest discomfort or worsening indigestion may at first be blamed on heartburn.

One of the most telling symptoms, however, is swallowing that becomes steadily harder over time. A person might first notice that solid foods don’t go down as smoothly, with softer foods and even liquids becoming difficult later on. That, he stresses, “is not something that should simply be treated as heartburn.”

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Understanding Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer is a disease that causes cancer cells to form in the tissues of the esophagus, a hollow, muscular tube that food and liquid move through when traveling from the throat to the stomach. The wall of the esophagus is made of up several layers of tissue; cancer begins on the inside lining and spreads to the outer layers of the esophagus as it grows.

Several lifestyle factors, like smoking or heavy alcohol use, can increase a person’s risk of developing esophageal cancer. Approximately 22,530 new cases of esophageal cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2026 according to American Cancer Society estimates, and it is more common among men.

“Esophageal cancer, we know is a tough one,” Dr. Brendon Stiles, a thoracic surgeon at Montefiore Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet. “It’s one of the cancers with some of the lowest cure rates out there, but like many cancers, if we find it early, we can often treat it effectively, either with surgery, with surgery and chemotherapy, with chemotherapy and radiation.”

Dr. Stiles recommends that patients report any symptoms that may indicate esophageal cancer to their doctors right away, since there are more treatment options when the cancer is caught early.

Further sharing his expertise on this disease with SurvivorNet, Dr. Stiles said, “We know that esophageal cancer is a tough one, it’s one of the cancers with one of the lowest cure rates out there.

“But like many cancers, if we find it early, we can often treat it effectively. Either with surgery, or surgery and chemotherapy surgery, chemotherapy and radiation sometimes. My message to patients is the same as it is for most cancers, try to get diagnosed early.”

Unfortunately, symptoms can be a bit vague, so those experiencing them may not think cancer right away. Still, it’s important to be aware of signs of this disease, which include:

• Pain/difficulty swallowing
• Weight loss
• Pain behind the breastbone
• Hoarseness/cough
• Indigestion/heartburn

A lump under the skin

“Try to get diagnosed early,” Dr. Stiles said. “For esophageal cancer, that means getting screened, getting endoscopies if you have any symptoms. The problem with esophageal cancer is it can mimic a lot of other things. You lose a little weight, have a little trouble swallowing, have a little heartburn, those are tough symptoms to pin down sometimes and often leads to patients with esophageal cancer presenting with later disease.”

Dr. Sofya Pintova, who practices hematology and oncology at Mount Sinai Cancer Center, also stressed the importance of getting checked up when these symptoms, which may not immediately indicate cancer, arise.

“Symptoms include things like … they’re losing weight, they’re having some burning in their esophagus or their chest, they’re having trouble or pain with swallowing and that will often lead to a medical evaluation,” Dr. Pintova explained.

Dr. Sofya Pintova explains how esophageal cancer is diagnosed.

“It includes an endoscopy, which is when a gastroenterologist puts a camera down the esophagus in the stomach and if they see an area that is suspicious for a mass, or if they see a mass, they may biopsy it. And if the biopsy confirms cancer, the next stage is usually staging,” she added.

Diagnosing & Staging Esophageal Cancer

Several tests may be used when diagnosing a patient with esophageal cancer. These include:

• Physical exam/health history – An exam of the body to check for general signs of health as well as signs that may indicate disease
• Chest X-ray – An X-ray of the organs and bones in the chest
• Upper endoscopy – A test that allows doctors to examine the walls of the esophagus using a small camera that is attached to a thin tube and passed down the patient’s throat

Other tests may be used as well to help get an accurate diagnosis. The upper endoscopy is particularly important because it helps your doctor to clearly see if there are any abnormalities in the wall of your esophagus.

Usually if a suspected esophageal cancer is found during an imaging test or an endoscopy, it will be biopsied, which means your doctor will remove a small piece of tissue using a cutting instrument that is passed though the scope. That will then be tested.

The two most common types of esophageal cancer are:

• Squamous cell carcinoma (which forms in the thin, flat cells lining the inside of the esophagus)
• Adenocarcinoma (cancer begins in the glandular cells, or the cells in the lining of the esophagus that produce and release fluids like mucus)

After you receive an esophageal cancer diagnosis, your doctor will need to determine the type, as well as the stage. Both types of esophageal cancer are broken up into five stages (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4).

“Once you do get diagnosed, ask what’s the stage,” Dr. Stiles said. “Patients should never be afraid to push doctors and say, ‘What is my stage? What are the treatment options at my stage? Do I have less invasive treatment options? Do I need multi-modality therapy?’ That means therapy with more than just surgery or more than just radiation with chemotherapy.”

Dr. Stiles stressed that patients with esophageal cancer must be advocates for their own disease and speak up about treatment concerns, and what other treatment options or routes may be available in their situation.

Getting a diagnosis of metastatic esophageal cancer means that the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body.

Esophageal Cancer Surgery: What to Expect

“This is the esophageal cancer that started in the esophagus and spread to other organs,” Dr. Pintova said. “In general, that type of stage is not curable but it is treatable.

“The goal of treatment is to help people live longer and better, of course balancing that very carefully with the potential side effects of the treatment,” she added.

In this stage, Dr. Pintova explained that a “systemic” treatment is often given which may include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapies, or combination approaches.

“An oncologist has to analyze the cancer in a lot of detail. It’s no longer enough to know that it’s esophageal cancer. We really get into the nitty gritty in understanding the different proteins the cancer expresses, the genetics in the cancer itself, and then choose the best type of treatment,” she said.

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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