Guidance

This guideline covers assessing and managing oesophago-gastric cancer in adults, including radical and palliative treatment and nutritional support. It aims to reduce variation in practice through better organisation of care and support, and improve quality of life and survival by giving advice on the most suitable treatments depending on cancer type, stage and location.

In July 2023, we reviewed the evidence and made new recommendations on palliative management of luminal obstruction with no curative intent for adults with oesophageal or oesophago-gastric junctional cancer.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Healthcare professionals involved in the care of people with oesophago-gastric cancer
  • Commissioners of oesophago-gastric cancer services
  • People with oesophago-gastric cancer, their family members and carers, and the public

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.