Abstract
The stress experienced by esophageal cancer patients who have undergone surgery is so significant that postoperative complications such as pneumonia or anastomotic leakage are frequently observed. Protecting patients against these postoperative complications requires suitable nutritional management, but many unresolved problems concerning nutritional support remain, such as determining appropriate daily caloric intake values for patients in different disease stages. Therefore, we investigated the resting energy expenditure of 39 patients with esophageal cancer, using indirect calorimetry. We used %BEE (resting energy expenditure—basal energy expenditure×100/basal energy expenditure) as a stress coefficient indicator and found significant correlations with the various disease stages (p<0.05). Specifically, we observed the following ranges of %BEE values for patients in the four stages: Stage I (6 cases), -10 to -8; Stage II (7 cases), -8 to -1; Stage III (14 cases), -19 to 15; and Stage IV (12cases), -11 to 37. However, increases in energy metabolism after surgery and chemotherapy were not observed. When the H-B formula was used to calculate the recommended daily caloric intake for esophageal cancer patients, respective stress coefficient values were 1.0 for patients in Stages I and II, and from 1.1 to 1.3 for patients in Stages III and IV before surgery.
