An Australian regional hospital's oesophagectomy experience: A 10-year case series from Tasmania

Oesophagectomy is recommended as part of curative treatment for oesophageal cancer but is associated with substantial morbidity. Centralization has been recommended to improve outcomes, but this has not been widely applied in Australia. This study aimed to audit a regional hospital's experience over ten years and compare it to outcomes from national and international centres to support the view that oesophagectomy can be performed safely in select regional centres in Australia.

Patients undergoing oesophagectomy at a single regional hospital in North-East Tasmania, Australia between January 2014 and December 2023 were retrospectively identified. Preoperative patient and tumour characteristics, and outcomes (mortality, anastomotic leak, length of stay, respiratory complications, long-term complications and survival) were compared to other centres.

65 patients were identified. 53 % were male, mean age was 65.2 years, 29.2 % had respiratory disease and 18.5 % were current smokers. The anastomotic leak rate was 7.7 %. 25 % developed pneumonia postoperatively. Average ICU length of stay was 4.6 days, median acute inpatient length of stay was 15 days. There was one in-hospital mortality and one 30-day mortality. 2 patients (3 %) required diaphragmatic hernia repair; 12 patients (18.5 %) required endoscopic dilatation of anastomotic strictures. The 5-year survival rate was 66 %. Our results compare favourably to published rates of anastomotic leak (10-15 %), inpatient stay (15 days), pneumonia (20-30 %), 30-day mortality (1-4 %) and anastomotic stricture (20 %).

Oesophagectomies can be safely performed in regional centres in Australia that routinely undertake a higher volume of cases per year, provided services required to manage complications are readily available.