Enteral nutrition is the preferred method for providing nutrition to patients who can consume food orally or via a feeding tube. In the case of patients with advanced esophageal cancer, tracking nutritional status is critical and weight is a key factor in this regard. Monitoring weight changes is a simple and non‑invasive approach that can be easily incorporated into clinical settings. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare different enteral nutrition techniques and assess the efficacy of weight changes in patients with advanced esophageal cancer. A retrospective study was conducted on patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma who received enteral nutrition between January 2012 and December 2022, and included the collection of various data, including baseline characteristics, comorbidities, BMI, route of enteral nutrition, tolerable enteral nutrition, total calories per day and mode of treatment via methods such as nasogastric tube (NG), esophageal stent, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) or open gastrostomy (OG). The study assessed the impact of enteral nutrition on body weight at the 0‑, 1‑, 3‑ and 6‑month follow‑up, as well as the 1‑year survival. After a 3‑month follow‑up, it was observed that patients with advanced esophageal cancer who underwent enteral nutrition exhibited a significant improvement in weight. This improvement trended to be sustained up to the 6‑month follow‑up. At 3 months, the groups that underwent NG, OG and PEG exhibited significant optimal results compared with the esophageal stent group (P=0.027, P=0.009 and P=0.001, respectively). No significant differences were observed among the NG, OG and PEG methods. The enteral nutrition can aid in weight improvement for patients who suffer from advanced esophageal cancer. Enteral feeding tubes have been demonstrated to be safe and effective options. Within 3 months of beginning nutrition support, there was a trend of weight improvement, which could be maintained up to the 6‑month follow‑up.

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