Abstract
Pulmonary complications occur frequently in postoperative stage of esophageal cancer. We made a retrospective study of the causes of pulmonary complications in the patients who underwent esophagectomy and reconstruction for esophageal cancer.
Twenty-nine patients who were admitted to our ICU after the operation were divided into two groups. Group I consists of 11 patients who needed mechanical ventilatory support more than one week because of hypoxemia, and group II of 18 patients who were able to be weaned from mechanical ventilation within one week.
Age, duration of operation, preoperative pulmonary function, blood loss during operation, method of reconstruction fluid administration and urine output during and after operation, dose of irradiation before operation, and extensiveness of lymph node dissection were analyzed and compared between the group I and the grup II. There was a statistically significant difference only in the extensiveness of lymph node dissection.
The above results suggest that the extensive lymph node dissection during the surgery for esophageal cancer plays an important role in causing pulmonary edema and atelectasis possibly through mechanical compression of the lung and disturbance of the pulmonary lymph flow.
