Twenty years of application of Ivor Lewis' technique in esophageal cancer surgery

[摘要] Objectives: to describe the historical results achieved by a working team in the multidisciplinary treatment of esophageal carcinoma by underlining the surgical treatment and its complications.Methods: a case series-type descriptive and observational study was carried out in the 1987-2010 period, in which the patients operated on from this disease were included. Some variables of interest such as location of lesion, staging, type of surgery, complications and survival rate were researched on.Results: one hundred and thirty two patients were treated, 64.4 % were males and 59 % were in the 60-69 y group. The epidermoid carcinoma was more common than the adenocarcinoma (54.5 vs. 41 %) and the main location of carcinoma was the middle third (42.4 %). Morbidity was 28.8 % and the main postoperative complications were respiratory infection and pulmonary thromboembolism. The operative mortality was 12.9 % and the survival rate at 5 years was 2 %.Conclusions: the multidisciplinary treatment is one of the fundamental achievements in treating this disease. However, even when higher results has been attained with respect to surgical morbidity and mortality rates of previous decades, the long-term survival rate is still discouraging. Nevertheless, surgery continues to be the only treatment with curing intentions. It is up to us to upgrade it.

[学科分类] 外科医学

[关键词] esophagus;carcinoma;esophagectomy;Ivor Lewis;esophagogastrectomy.