Cancer of the esophagus: the environmental connection.

Cancer of the esophagus poses a unique challenge for students of cancer prevention. The role of nutritional determinants and other environmental factors in modulating esophageal cancer has received increasing support from data collected during the last decades. Ecologic, geographic, economic, and cultural variables appear to be collectively operational in determining the nutritional profiles of high-risk populations in the Asian esophageal cancer belt and discrete hyperendemic pockets throughout the world. Altering dietary staples, preventing food contamination by mycotoxins, using molybdenum as a chemical fertilizer, modifying social habits, and adding deficient micronutrients to diets of high-risk groups will potentially avert the development of this devastating malignant neoplasm.