Magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the study of esophageal cancer

Esophageal cancer is one of the most common reasons of human death, the prognosis is closely related to the diagnosed stages. Early esophageal cancer usually has a better prognosis, while the middle -advanced stage has a poor five -year survival rate. The early diagnosis of esophageal cancer is important. In the recent years, magnetic resonance technology develops very fast, the magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be used to study the biochemistry and physiology of tumors or tissue in vivo by detecting several trace metabolites, energy metabolism and quantitatively analysing the compounds changes. Most studies focused on specimens or secretions in vivo or in vitro experiments in the literatures. We summarized the MRS studies on esophageal cancer in this article.