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ORPHA:418951

Undifferentiated carcinoma of esophagus

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Undifferentiated esophageal carcinoma

Publications

173

64.9th percentile

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,098

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare, aggressive, malignant, epithelial carcinoma of the esophagus characterized, macroscopically, by an exophytic mass with central ulceration located on the esophagus and, histologically, by a sheet-like growth of neoplastic cells without significant glandular, squamous or neuroendocrine differentiation. Patients may present with dysphagia, long-standing history of gastroesophageal reflux, weight loss, anemia, abdominal or chest pain/pressure, dyspnea, and/or hematemesis. Presence or history of Barrett esophagus is frequently associated.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (5)

esophageal undifferentiated carcinoma · esophagus undifferentiated carcinoma · oesophagus undifferentiated carcinoma · undifferentiated esophageal cancer · undifferentiated esophageal carcinoma

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    173 matched papers (91 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

173

173 papers have ever been published on this condition (under this name). For scale, breast cancer has over 700,000. Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

173 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

91 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 64.9th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 173 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,098

Distinct author names in 173 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Wang Y5 papers · 2026

    CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterial and Nanosafety, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, Beijing, P. R. China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Yang Y5 papers · 2024

    CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterial and Nanosafety, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, Beijing, P. R. China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Kim JH4 papers · 2021

    Department of Gastroenterology, Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, Busan, Korea.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Li EM4 papers · 2021

    The Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for High Cancer Incidence Coastal Chaoshan Area, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, 515041, P. R. China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Li X4 papers · 2025

    Department of Pathology, 81th Hospital of PLA, Nanjing.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Wang J4 papers · 2021

    Jia Wang, Nan Wu, Qing-Feng Zheng, Shi Yan, Chao Lv, Shao-Lei Li, Yue Yang, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery II, Peking University School of Oncology, Beijing Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing 100142, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Xu J4 papers · 2024

    Affiliated Hospital Cancer Center, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, P. R. China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Xu LY4 papers · 2021

    The Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for High Cancer Incidence Coastal Chaoshan Area, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, 515041, P. R. China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Anderegg MCJ3 papers · 2026

    Department of Surgery, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Gisbertz SS3 papers · 2026

    Department of Surgery, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting. 51 trials are registered for undifferentiated carcinoma, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 82.4th percentile).

high confidence · 82.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

2 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Broader category: undifferentiated carcinoma

51

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Undifferentiated carcinoma of esophagus" OR "Undifferentiated carcinoma of the esophagus" OR "Undifferentiated esophageal carcinoma" OR "esophageal undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "esophagus undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "oesophagus undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "undifferentiated esophageal cancer"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Undifferentiated carcinoma of esophagus" OR "Undifferentiated carcinoma of the esophagus" OR "Undifferentiated esophageal carcinoma" OR "esophageal undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "esophagus undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "oesophagus undifferentiated carcinoma" OR "undifferentiated esophageal cancer"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 2 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"undifferentiated carcinoma"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T15:45:59.406Z