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Updated: Feb 7, 2026

Modeling Oral-Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in 3D Organoids
Published on: December 23, 2022
Cervical or thoracic anastomosis for patients with cervicothoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
Ran Mo1, Chen Chen2, Liang Pan1
1Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China.
Background:
For cervical and higher-level esophageal tumors, the choice of cervical anastomosis or thoracic anastomosis is still controversial. The goal of this study was to explore the optimal surgical approach for cervicothoracic esophageal squamous tumors.
Methods:
We retrospectively analyzed 3,802 consecutive patients with esophageal squamous cell tumors in Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital from Jan 2001 to Jan 2017. Twenty-six patients with cervical anastomosis and twenty-eight patients with thoracic anastomosis were evaluated.
Results:
The cervical anastomosis group exhibited a greater number of resected lymph nodes (36.5±7.3 vs. 19.9±5.7, P<0.001). In addition, the cervical anastomosis group exhibited a higher recurrence rate (71.4% vs. 41.7%, P=0.047) and increased locoregional recurrence (P=0.040). Overall survival was not significantly different between groups (P=0.331). Moreover, multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that postoperative locoregional recurrence is an independent risk factor for survival (P=0.031, 95% CI: 1.114-8.952).
Conclusions:
Thoracic anastomosis led to satisfactory results in patients with cervicothoracic esophageal squamous tumors.
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