Surgical treatment for poor-risk patients with carcinoma of the esophagus.

During the period between 1979 and 1988, 145 patients with cancer of the esophagus were admitted to our department. They were examined for the preoperative risk factors associated with multiple organ function and classified into three groups according to the risk score. Special attention was paid to postoperative pulmonary complications, mortality and the long term results of surgery in the poor-risk patients and the findings analyzed in reference to the operative procedures. The resection rate for the poor-risk group was 41 per cent, however, esophagectomy was only able to be combined with a right thoracotomy and abdominal approach in 26 per cent of the patients in this group. Postoperative pulmonary complications developed in 64 per cent of the poor-risk patients who underwent a transthoracic esophagectomy and in only 25 per cent of those who received a transhiatal esophagectomy, although there was no significant difference in the overall survival rate between these two subgroups. The present observations therefore raised the possibility that transhiatal esophagectomy may improve the results of surgical treatment for poor-risk patients with esophageal cancer.