[Experiences with an Invagination Technique for Esophagogastric End-to-End Anastomoses]

80 patients with esophageal cancer underwent esophagectomy with the stomach as an esophageal substitute. For end-to-end esophagogastrostomy an invagination technique was used. We describe the technique and the results. An anastomotic leak was observed in 5 of 80 patients (6.3 %) in the total, in 5 of 64 cases with cervical anastomosis (7.8 %) and in none of the 16 patients with thoracic anastomosis. 6 of 80 patients (6.5 %) died, 5 due to nonsurgical complications and one patient due to a necrosis of the esophageal substitute. On the basis of these results we recommend the described anastomotic technique due to its simplicity and low anastomotic leakage rate.