OBJECTIVETo explore long-term effect of the treatment of refractory benign esophageal strictures with a novel retrievable fully covered stent made of nitinol alloy.

METHODSFrom November 2009 to May 2011, the stents were placed in 8 patients with refractory benign esophageal strictures in the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University. Esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy and barium swallow examinations were performed respectively on the 1st, 7th, 30th, 60th day after implantations of the stents and 1,2,3,6 months or even longer after removal of the stents in order to assess the long-term effect on the improvement of dysphagia and the development of complications.

RESULTSThe stents were successful deployed in all the patients. The dysphagia scores were improved instantly and significantly as compared to the preoperative scores(P<0.05). Seven patients had long-term improvement of dysphagia. The dwelling time of all the stents ranged from 4 to 60 weeks, with a median of 16.8 weeks. Six patients had their stent removed after a dwelling time of 4 to 18 weeks(median 9.7 weeks). The follow-up period was 1.5-9 months (median 6.1 months). The improvement of dysphagia was also significant during follow-up after removal of the stents(P<0.05). At the most recent follow up, two patients still had the stent in place. The first one has already been followed up for 15 months and was still on regular diet. The other one experienced improvement of dysphagia score up to two months after placement, but downgraded to 3 by the third month. Relapse of stenosis occurred in 1 patient, migration in 2 patients, and tissue hyperplasia in 3 patients, of whom 2 developed inward growth of granulation tissue due to the rupture of the covering membrane.

CONCLUSIONSThe new retrievable fully covered stent made of nitinol alloy significantly improves the swallowing function of patients with intractable benign esophageal strictures after implantation and after removal of the stents, with low incidence of long-term restenosis. However, the high rate of migrations and the poor quality of the covering membrane further implies that the design of the new stent still needs to be improved.

Adult ; Aged ; Alloys ; Esophageal Stenosis ; surgery ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prosthesis Implantation ; instrumentation ; methods ; Stents ; Treatment Outcome

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the learning process of video-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE).

METHODSOne hundred consecutive patients with thoracic esophageal carcinoma were treated by a same team of surgeons, and were divided into 3 groups in chronological order. The former two groups both consisted of 25 patients with thoracoscopy plus laparotomy. The remaining 50 patients were enrolled in the third group with thoracoscopy plus laparoscopy. Clinicopathological data including operative time, blood loss, protection of normal structures, complications, length of ICU stay, postoperative stay, and lymph nodes harvest, were collected and compared between groups.

RESULTSProcedures were accomplished successfully in 96 patients. Only 4 cases were converted to open thoracotomy and none to laparotomy. The median operative time was 310 min and blood loss was 200 ml. The median number of lymph node harvest was 22. The overall complication rate was 50%. Comparison of first two groups revealed that significant differences existed in the preservation rate of arch of azygos vein (P=0.010), bronchial vessels (P=0.038), and exposure rate of thoracic part of left recurrent laryngeal nerve( P=0.048). Comparison of the former and latter 50 patients revealed that significant differences existed in thoracic operative time (P<0.001), blood loss (P=0.025), preservation rate of arch of azygos vein (P=0.001) and bronchial vessels (P<0.001), the number of lymph node harvest in thoracoscopy (P=0.022) and in left recurrent laryngeal nerve chain (P<0.001), and exposure rate of initiate part of left recurrent laryngeal nerve (P=0.002).

CONCLUSIONThe learning curve of MIE is long and beginners should proceed step by step.

Adult ; Aged ; Esophageal Neoplasms ; surgery ; Esophagectomy ; methods ; Female ; Humans ; Learning Curve ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Retrospective Studies ; Thoracoscopy ; methods ; Video-Assisted Surgery ; methods

The presence of lymph node metastasis is an important prognostic factor for patients with esophageal cancer. Accurate assessment of lymph nodes in thoracic esophageal carcinoma is essential for selecting appropriate treatment and forecasting disease progression. Positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (PET/CT) is becoming an important tool in the workup of esophageal carcinoma. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) in assessing lymph node metastasis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) prior to surgery. Fifty-nine surgical patients with pathologically confirmed thoracic ESCC were retrospectively studied. These patients underwent radical esophagectomy with pathologic evaluation of lymph nodes. They all had (18)F-FDG PET/CT scans in their preoperative staging procedures. None had a prior history of cancer. The pathologic status and PET/CT SUVmax of lymph nodes were collected to calculate the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and to determine the best cutoff value of the PET/CT SUVmax to distinguish benign from malignant lymph nodes. Lymph node data from 27 others were used for the validation. A total of 323 lymph nodes including 39 metastatic lymph nodes were evaluated in the training cohort, and 117 lymph nodes including 32 metastatic lymph nodes were evaluated in the validation cohort. The cutoff point of the SUVmax for lymph nodes was 4.1, as calculated by ROC curve (sensitivity, 80%; specificity, 92%; accuracy, 90%). When this cutoff value was applied to the validation cohort, a sensitivity, a specificity, and an accuracy of 81%, 88%, and 86%, respectively, were obtained. These results suggest that the SUVmax of lymph nodes predicts malignancy. Indeed, when an SUVmax of 4.1 was used instead of 2.5, FDG-PET/CT was more accurate in assessing nodal metastasis.
Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; diagnostic imaging ; Esophageal Neoplasms ; diagnostic imaging ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; diagnostic imaging ; Multimodal Imaging ; methods ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Radiopharmaceuticals ; Retrospective Studies ; Sensitivity and Specificity