It is thought that smoking and alcohol, among other things, can contribute to cancer of the oesophagus. Within Europe this could account for the marked regional variation. For example, cancer of the oesophagus is twice as common in eastern Scotland as it is in the south of England.
There is also a particularly high rate in Normandy in France which has been blamed on drinking Calvados, an apple brandy. It is also 10 times more common in southern China than it is in the UK. These differences are probably related to diet as people in southern China eat a lot of heavily smoked and salted fish.
In the UK, iron deficiency used to be a common cause of cancers in the upper gullet, particularly in women. But with better diet and better medical care during pregnancy, this problem has now been virtually eliminated.
The disease is three times more common in men than in women and is more common in people over the age of 60.
