Oesophageal cancer has three different sub-types, researchers announced last night.
The British researchers say the findings will help the development of targeted treatments.
They have reported their findings in Nature Genetics.
They come from a genetic analysis of 129 cases of cancer.
They say the first sub-type simply had faults in DNA repair pathways. The second sub-type had more DNA mistakes and more immune cells in the tumours.
The third sub-type had a DNA signature linked to the cell ageing process.
The researchers say the second sub-type might respond to immunotherapy while the third type from drugs that target specific proteins.
Researcher Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, from Cambridge University, said the next step would be a clinical trial using DNA testing to decide treatments.
She said: "Targeted treatments for the disease have so far not been successful, and this is mostly down to the lack of ways to determine which patients might benefit from different treatments.
"These new findings give us a greater understanding of the DNA signatures that underpin different subtypes of the disease and means we could better tailor treatment."
Professor Peter Johnson, chief clinician with Cancer Research UK, which backed the research, said it was a "genuinely new" discovery.
He said: "Although survival rates from oesophageal cancer have been slowly rising in the last few years they are still far too low, and this research points the way to a completely new way of understanding and tackling the disease.”
Secrier, M. et al. Mutational signatures in esophageal adenocarcinoma reveal etiologically distinct subgroups with therapeutic relevance Nature Genetics 5 September 2016.
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