Clinical Comparison of Complications Between Cervical and Thor acic Esophagogastrostomy After Resection of Esophageal Cancer

Park, Sang Cheol; Jo, Jung Ku; Kim, Kong Su

Abstract

BACKGROUND: For resection of esophageal cancer, esophagogastrostomy caused serous multiple complications such as leakage of anastomosis site, stenosis, recurrence of cancer, etc. Especially, accoding to the anastomosis site of esophagogastrostomy, patients in post operation state was felt various subjective symptom, multiple complications and longer hospital periods, etc. Therefore, there was a demand for comparison and analysis of complication between cervical and thoracic esophagogastrostomy. MATERIAL AND METHOD: From January 1995 to May 1999, 55patients with esophageal cancer underwent cervical esophagogastrostomy(23patients) or thoracic esophagogastrostomy(32patients). Cancer was grouped according to the postoperative staging(I--5pt, II--27pt, III--23pt) by the AJCC classification and location: upper thoracic(3pt), middle(34pt) and lower(18pt). Cancer was mostly squamous cell carcinoma except 2 adenocarcinoma. Fifty five patients were male with average age of 59 years for cervical anastomosis and 55 years for thoracic anastomosis. The staple anastomosis was done in one cervical anastomosis patient and 23 thoracic anastomosis patients. RESULT: There was one mortality from cervical anastomosis and two from thoracic anastomosis. Fourty six complications(respiratory and digestive system, etc..) occurred in 15cervical anastomosis patients and 37 complication in 13thoracic anastomosis patients. In 23cervical esophagogastrostomy patients, 11patients had moderate to severe dysphagea during swallowing. However, only 2thoracic anastomosis patients experienced this dysphagea. The postoperative hospital stay was above 20days in 18 cervical anastomosis patients, and in 13thoracic anastomosis patients.
CONCLUSION
Among esophageal tumor cases, respiratory, digestive, infection and other complications did occur after esophagogastric anastomosis. Particularly, mortality rate secondary to respiratory complication was high. Anastomotic leakage was more frequent in manual anastomosis than in staple anastomosis, and was also seen more frequently among cervical anastomosis than among thoracic anastomosis. In the cases of cervical anastomosis, the patients complained more of dysphagea while their hospital stays were significantly long.