Operative Complications of Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy in Patients with Esophageal Cancer: Analysis of 80 Cases

Esophageal cancer (EC) is a common cancer of the digestive system which is one of the most common cancers in our country The primary treatment of EC is surgery. Due to the development of minimally invasive techniques (MIE), in the current study, we have assessed the results of these techniques in patients with EC surgery. A total of 80 patients with middle and lower third ECs who had good conditions and were operated with MIE technique (McKeown) from 2014 to 2021, were enrolled in this study. Patients were evaluated based on the following criteria: age, sex, tumor location, pathology, peri-operative complications leading the minimally invasive esophagectomy technique to being converted to an open surgery, and early post-operative complications after surgery and mortality. A total of 80 patients with EC were enrolled in the study. 85% (n=68) of our patients were male and 15% (n=12) were female with an average age of 58.21±11.39 years old. 43.75% of the patients had a history of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Surgery was performed with McKeown technique without complications in 91.25% of the patients. In 8.75% of the patients tracheal injury (n=1), uncontrolled bleeding (n=1), and severe pleural adhesions VATS (n=5) led the surgery plan changing into open surgery. Post-operative complications were observed in 13.75% of patients. This study suggests using McKeown technique in patients with EC in highly experienced medical centers in order to obtain proper results with low rate of peri- and post-operative complications.