ET-1 promotes the growth and metastasis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma via activating PI3K/Akt pathway

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a common malignant tumor of the digestive tract and an important health-related problem in the world (1). China is one of the countries with the highest incidence and mortality of esophageal cancer, with ESCC as the main subtype (2). Although progress in the diagnosis and treatment of ESCC has been made in recent years, the prognosis is still poor and the 5-year survival rate is less than 30%, mainly because many patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage. ESCC in the early stage has no obvious clinical symptoms and a lack of effective and non-invasive methods for the early diagnosis (3). Therefore, it is urgent to better understand the molecular mechanism and identify biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of ESCC