McKeown Esophagectomy

Abstract

AbstractEsophageal cancer is the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death worldwide and affects more than 450,000 people all over the world [1]. Most patients with esophageal cancer in Asian countries such as Japan and China have squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), while most of those in Western countries have adenocarcinoma [2, 3]. In particular, the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma in the USA and the UK is rapidly increasing, in which the age-adjusted incidence has risen by 39·6% for men and 37·5% for women every 5 years in the UK [3]. Despite improvements in surgical techniques and perioperative management [4, 5] and surgery combined with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy [6, 7], the prognosis of esophageal cancer at advanced stage remains poor with 30–40% in a 5-year survival globally [8] and the 5-year survival rate for the patients receiving esophagectomy in Japan was 55.5% [9].