食管癌（EC）是消化道中第六大常见癌症和第七大致命恶性肿瘤，代表了一个重大的全球健康挑战。尽管有多模式的治疗策略可用，但现有的EC治疗仍然在疗效有限和严重副作用方面表现不佳。最近，对调控细胞死亡（RCD）的子程序和分子机制的认识取得了快速进展，增强了对涉及多种肿瘤（包括EC）发生、进展和治疗的关键通路的理解。在这种情况下，利用小分子化合物靶向RCD子程序已成为EC患者的一种有前景的治疗策略。因此，在这篇综述中，我们首先讨论了EC的风险因素和预防措施。我们接着概述了EC患者已建立的治疗方案。此外，我们不仅简要总结了与EC相关的五种研究最透彻的RCD子程序机制（包括细胞凋亡、铁死、火死、坏死样凋亡和自噬），还概述了针对上述RCD子程序的小分子化合物和长链非编码RNA（lncRNA）的最新进展，这些进展可能在将来为EC患者提供一种新的治疗策略。© 作者.

Esophageal cancer (EC) is the sixth most common and the seventh most deadly malignancy of the digestive tract, representing a major global health challenge. Despite the availability of multimodal therapeutic strategies, the existing EC treatments continue to yield unsatisfactory results due to their limited efficacy and severe side effects. Recently, knowledge of the subroutines and molecular mechanisms of regulated cell death (RCD) has progressed rapidly, enhancing the understanding of key pathways related to the occurrence, progression, and treatment of many types of tumors, including EC. In this context, the use of small-molecule compounds to target such RCD subroutines has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with EC. Thus, in this review, we firstly discussed the risk factors and prevention of EC. We then outlined the established treatment regimens for patients with EC. Furthermore, we not only briefly summarized the mechanisms of five best studied subroutines of RCD related to EC, including apoptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, necroptosis and autophagy, but also outlined the recent advances in the development of small-molecule compounds and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) targeting the abovementioned RCD subroutines, which may serve as a new therapeutic strategy for patients with EC in the future.© The author(s).