There have been many new developments in our understanding of esophageal carcinoma biology over the past several years. Information regarding both of the major forms of this disease, adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, has accumulated in conjunction with data on precursor conditions such as Barretts esophagus. Interesting and promising findings have included overexpression of proto-oncogenes,loss of heterozygosity at multiple chromosomal loci, tumor suppressor gene inactivation, epigenetic silencing by DNA methylation, and mutations and deletions involving the tumor suppressor gene p53. Important cancer pathways, the cyclin kinase inhibitor cascade and the DNA mismatch repair process, implicated in the genesis of multiple .tumor types have also been inculpated in esophageal carcinogenesis. Alterations in the p16 and p15 cyclin kinase inhibitors including point mutations and homozygous deletions have been reported in primary esophageal tumors. Further developments in the field of molecular carcinogenesis of esophageal malignancies promise to yield improvements in prevention, early detection, prognostic categorization, and perhaps gene-based therapy of this deadly disease.