ABSTRACT
The patient was a 67-year-old woman with achalasia and squamous cell carcinoma(SCC)of the esophagus. She presented with a difficulty in swallowing. The cancer was on the surface of the esophagus. The patient initially received systemic chemotherapy with 5-FU and cisplatin, and radiation therapy. The difficulty in swallowing persisted due to insufficiency of radiation treatment caused by achalasia. Therefore, we shifted the treatment plan from chemoradiotherapy to surgery. Endoscopic examination performed before surgery showed that there was no obvious cancer in the esophagus. We resected the esophagus routinely. On the specimen, no cancer cells were detected upon macroscopic and microscopic examinations; metastasis was not detected in the lymph node. Achalasia is a recognized risk factor for esophageal SCC. In the treatment of superficial SCC, no difference of therapeutic effect was observed between surgery and chemoradiation. However, for the treatment of certain cases of SCC with achalasia, including the treatment of achalasia itself, surgery can be the preferred option of treatment.