Thoracic duct is the largest lymphatic vessel in the body. It originates from the chyle pool in the abdominal cavity, upward across aortic hiatus of the diaphragm into the right thoracic cavity, and finally importing into the left jugular vein angle. Thoracic duct plays a very important role in the transporting process of the body's lymph and chylous fluid. More than 70% of the lymph and chylous fluid transport through it into the blood. If the thoracic duct was damaged, it would lead to fluid and electrolyte imbalance, immune dysfunction, malnutrition and the patient's life would be endangered when it was serious. Therefore, the clinical significance of the thoracic duct is always a hot research issue. Through unremitting exploration in recent years, we have a further understanding about structure and function of the thoracic duct. And we used this to remould and ligate it to cure some intractable disease. Now we summarize the research progress as follows.
Esophageal carcinoma is a kind of common malignant tumor in the digestive tract. Although a lot of basic researches and clinical trials have been carried out all over the world, neither the diagnostic level nor the therapeutic effects have been obviously improved. The 5-year survival rate of esophageal cancer patient is still lower than that of other malignant tumors. Up to now, some frontier researches consider that the reason of the esophageal carcinoma being difficult to cure is related to the stem cells in it. Elimination or suppression of these stem cells may bring new hope for the treatment of esophageal cancer. This article generally introduces the specific markers, separation and indentification methods about the esophageal cancer stem cell. The targeted therapy is also mentioned.