Abstract
Between October, 1953 and July, 1962, 145 patients with cancer of the esophagus and the cardia were seen at our clinic, Surgical exploration was carried out in 92 cases. We studied on the causes of death following resection of esophageal cancer in 92 operated cases. The results were as following.
1) Resections of the esophagus were carried out in 82.8% of the total cases and resections with the intrathoracic esophagogastric or esophagojejunal junction were performed in 71 cases.
2) There were 22 deaths as a direct result of the operation, the rate of the operative mortality being 24.7%. The mortality of resection with the intrathoracic anastomosis was 26%, while that with the intraabdominal anastomosis was only 8.3%.
3) The operative mortality was higher in cases with cancer in the upper half than the lower half of the esophagus. The narrower the stenosis of the esophagus was and the longer of tumor was, the higher the mortality was.
4) Postoperative complications appeared in 16.8%, with the mortality of 51.2%, where the leak of junction occurred in 11.2%, the spontaneous pneumothorax in 9%, the excessive blood loss in 5.6% and the acute cardiac failure in 5.6%.
5) Under the causes of death the most frequent were the leak of junction and the spontaneous pneumothorax, the next being the lung complication and the excessive blood loss.
6) The causes of the spontaneous pneumothorax were unable to explained by autopsy, but we thought that it had the causal relation with the leak of junction.
