Minimally invasive esophagectomy via Sweet approach in combination with cervical mediastinoscopy is a valuable approach for surgical treatment of esophageal cancer.

OBJECTIVES

To compare the short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes in patients with esophageal cancer between minimally invasive esophagectomy via Sweet approach in combination with cervical mediastinoscopy (MIE-SM) and minimally invasive esophagectomy via McKeown approach (MIE-MC), and to evaluate the value of MIE-SM in the surgical treatment of esophageal cancer.

METHODS

A prospective, nonrandomized study was adopted. A total of 65 esophageal cancer patients after MIE-SM and MIE-MC from June 2014 to May 2016 were included. Among them, 33 patients underwent MIE-SM and 32 patients underwent MIE-MC. Short-term outcomes (including the duration of surgery, intraoperative blood loss volume, ICU stay time, postoperative complications, postoperative hospital stay, reoperation, open surgery, number of dissected lymph nodes, and 30-day mortality), mid-term outcomes, [including Quality of Life Core Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) and the esophageal site-specific module (QLQ-OES18)], long-term outcomes [including overall survival and disease-free survival] were compared between the 2 groups.

RESULTS

Radical resection (R0) were achieved in all patients. There were no significant differences in the duration of surgery, intraoperative blood loss volume, ICU stay time, postoperative complications, and postoperative hospital stay between the 2 groups (all >0.05). More lymph nodes were dissected in the MIE-SM group (24.1±7.3) than those in the MIE-MC group (17.8±5.0, <0.001). The emotional function, global health status scale scores in QLQ-C30 scale in the MIE-SM group were significantly higher than those in the MIE-MC group (=0.025, <0.001, respectively), and the pain score in the MIE-SM group was significantly lower than that in the MIE-MC group (=0.013). QLQ-OES18 results showed that the pain score in the MIE-SM group was significantly lower than that in the MIE-MC group (=0.021). Survival analysis showed that the overall survival and disease-free survival were similar between the 2 groups.

CONCLUSIONS

MIE-SM appears to be a safe surgical approach, which may get better quality of life, suffer less pain, and can achieve the same therapeutic effect as MIE-MC. Therefore, MIE-SM should be considered as a valuable approach for the treatment of middle and lower esophageal cancer.