[Our experience and the outlook for the development of surgery in esophageal cancer]

Results of resections and simultaneous plasty of the esophagus in 178 patients with the III and III-IV stages of the malignant process are analyzed. The overwhelming majority of the patients were elderly and senile people. The total intrahospital lethality was 14.1%, lethality due to incompetent anastomoses was 5.6%. A comparative evaluation of results of the Lewis operations and operations performed by the Savinykh-Kariakin method has shown that lethality in the first group of patients was 3.5 times higher than in the second group. Pulmonary and cardio-vascular complications as well as infectious complications were significantly more frequent after the intrapleural access and plasty of the esophagus. Less amount of such complications after the posteromedial plasty of the esophagus by the Savinykh-Kariakin method resulted in less total lethality (7.9%). The authors consider the better results of operative treatment to be related both with less traumatic method of resection and plasty of the esophagus and with the adequate control of possible complications and prophylactic measures.