The relationship between perioperative infectious complications and long-term prognosis after esophagectomy

Abstract

Esophagectomy for esophageal cancer used to be more invasive and complicated than other gastrointestinal surgeries, however, with the introduction of thoracoscopic surgery and robot-assisted surgery, it has become less invasive recently. The standard treatment for stage Ⅱ and Ⅲ thoracic esophageal cancer in Japan is preoperative chemotherapy (docetaxel + cisplatin + 5-FU) followed by surgery. In addition, guidelines now recommend salvage surgery after radical chemoradiotherapy, and the role of esophagectomy in the treatment of esophageal cancer has been significant. There are scattered reports that postoperative infectious complications after esophagectomy worsen long-term prognosis, and meta-analyses have also reported that postoperative infectious complications after esophagectomy worsen long-term prognosis. Efforts to reduce postoperative infectious complications after esophagectomy are important to improve the long-term prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer.