[Causes of peri-operative mortality in patients with esophageal cancer treated surgically (personal material)]

99 surgical procedures of thoracic part of esophagus resections were performed between 1985 and 1995. All thoracotomies were right-sided and alimentary canal continuity were substituted with a stomach (or with a small intestine or a colon in only a few cases) transposed inside a thorax cavity. Almost all cases there were planoepitheliale cancers. The sex index (men to women) was 6:1. The main reason of perioperative mortality were pulmonary complications (almost 90%): a respiratory insufficiency, an atelectasias, infections, and a broncho-pleural leakage. The nutrition state, stapler-using, anastomosis leak, and wound-healing way had no influence on mortality rate. Other mortality reasons there were a pleural hemorrhage, a mediastinitis as a result of esophago-gastric anastomosis disruption, a heart infarct, and a thrombo-embolic complications.