Abstract: It is imperative to build an esophageal cancer database that meets China′s conditions to manage and use the clinical diagnosis and treatment data of esophageal cancer. The tumor registration database has been constructed since 1929 in Western countries. Nowadays many comprehensive tumor registration databases exist around the world, such as the SEER database, which provide valuable resources for studying tumor etiology and evaluating treatment plans. The authors introduce the development of current international consensus esophageal cancer database and esophageal cancer staging bases, summarize the construction experiences and clinical significance of esophageal cancer databases from Western countries, and present prospects for the development of esophageal cancer databases in the future.