Quality indicators of surgery for adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction

Abstract

Surgical treatment of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction is complex and challenging. Huge variation exist in the immediate and long term outcomes of such interventions and it is generally accepted that this is a direct consequence of the experience of the surgical team. However beside surgical quality many other indicators of quality management may influence outcome. Definition of the gastroesophageal junction remains controversial and the performance of staging procedures i.e. CT scan, endoscopy and fine needle aspiration, PET scan still suboptimal. As a result there is disagreement on the selection of patients for surgery, type of surgical approach in particular in relation to the extent of lymph node dissection as well as the extent of esophageal and/or gastric resection. In the design of randomized controlled trials comparing primary surgery versus multimodality treatment surgical quality criteria are notoriously lacking. It therefore remains a matter of debate which patients eventually will benefit from primary surgery versus those who will benefit from induction therapy. A lack of surgical quality indicators is also very prominent when assessing the value of new surgical technologies such as minimally invasive surgery or robotic surgery. Improvements in this wide spectrum of aspects is mandatory and will certainly be of great value to further improve both short and long term outcome after surgery for these complex cancers. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.