Aim: With recent advances in multimodal therapy for esophageal cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) followed by surgery has become the standard treatment for advanced resectable esophageal cancer. This study analyzed the feasibility and clinical outcomes of thoracoscopic esophagectomy (TE) after NAC.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively analyzed 129 patients who underwent TE with radical mediastinal lymph node dissection between January 2005 and December 2012. Of these patients, 54 received NAC( NAC+group) and 75 did not( NAC-group).The perioperative clinical outcomes, number of dissected nodes, and postoperative mortality were compared between the 2 groups.
Results: The operation time in the NAC+group was significantly longer than that in the NAC-group( p<0.01).However, the estimated blood loss was significantly less in the NAC+group( p<0.01).There was no significant difference in the number of dissected nodes and the frequency of postoperative complications between the 2 groups.
Conclusion: TE can be safely adopted for the treatment of patients with advanced esophageal cancer after NAC.