Guidelines for treatment of esophageal atresia in the light of most recent publications

Abstract

Introduction: Esophageal atresia is a congenital anomaly well known in the community of pediatric surgeons. Nonetheless some aspects of management remain vague and societies of gastroenterologists as well as surgeons have been gathering to determine pertinent ways to handle this condition. To make ground for unification, the guidelines of some most important societies were compared and gathered in one review. Materials and Methods: Literature review of online databases of the PubMed and the Cochrane Library with “(o)esophageal atresia”, “guidelines” and “follow-up” used as keywords. Results: Over the course of the last few years there was a lot of effort invested in making clear and accurate guidelines for management of EA, largely with good results. In the majority of important matters, opinions of specialists were consistent or complementary to each other. Because some of them described different phases of management, gathering them together led to obtaining the wider picture, which can help pediatric surgeons in making decisions while treating the patients with EA. Conclusion: There is a necessity for careful following guidelines which have been changing quite fast along with new significant publications about EA. Some concerns remained debatable and their accentuation in this review was made to bring awareness to vague issues, such as postoperative antibiotic prophylaxis or duration of administering PPI. Additionally structured follow-up programs for the first 18 years and after reaching maturity should be made.