Endoscopic comparison of two cases: distal resection of reconstructed gastric tube

Recently, with the improvement of the prognosis of esophageal cancer, subsequent gastric cancer has increased. However, the standard surgical treatment for such patients has not been established as of yet. Since the patient's physical condition is relatively poor after Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy, it is important that surgical strategies must be decided according to both physical and cancerous conditions. Hence, various surgical procedures have been reported to date. The authors experienced two cases with cancer occurring in the reconstructed gastric tube after Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy. One was subsequent primary gastric cancer, and the other was metastatic gastric cancer. Distal resection of the gastric tube including the dissection of the right gastroepiploic vessels was carried out in both cases. Vascular reconstruction by utilizing microsurgery technique was attempted for each case, but failed in one case. After surgery, four sessions of endoscopic examinations were carried out. In the early period, we could identify mucosal ischemic change in the remnant gastric tube in the case without successful vascular reconstruction. On the contrary, no ischemic change was revealed in the other with successful vascular reconstruction. Hence, we came to the conclusion that vascular reconstruction must be added to the cases, which undergo distal resection of the reconstructed gastric tube with regional vascular dissection.