Purpose: After esophagectomy and gastric reconstruction for esophageal cancer, patients suffer from various symptoms that can detract from quality of life. Endoscopy is a useful diagnostic tool for evaluating patients after esophagectomy. This observational study was performed to investigate the correlation between symptoms and endoscopic findings one year after esophageal surgery and to assess the clinical usefulness of one-year endoscopic follow-up.
Materials and methods: From 2001 to 2008, 162 patients who underwent esophagectomy with gastric reconstruction were endoscopically examined one year after operation.
Results: Patients suffered from the following symptoms: nocturnal cough (n=10), regurgitation (n=7), cervical heartburn (n=3), lump sensation (n=2), dysphagia (n=20) and odynophagia (n=22). Eighty-five (52.5%) patients had abnormal findings on endoscopic examination. Twelve (7.4%) patients had reflux esophagitis, and 37 (22.8%) patients had an anastomotic stricture. Only stricture-related symptoms were correlated with the finding of anastomotic strictures (p<0.001). Two patients had recurrences at the anastomotic sites, and four patients had regional lymph node recurrences with gastric conduit invasion visualized by endoscopy. Newly-developed malignancies in the esophageal remnant or hypopharynx that were not detected by clinical symptoms and imaging studies were reported in two patients.
Conclusion: One year after esophagectomy, endoscopic findings were not correlated with clinical symptoms, except those related to stricture. Routine endoscopic follow-up is a useful tool for identifying latent functional and oncological lesions.