Background: This study was performed to elucidate the clinical efficacy of the prewarming prophylaxis method for intraoperative hypothermia during thoracoscopic esophagectomy for esophageal cancer.
Methods: We enrolled 100 consecutive patients with esophageal cancer. Two patients in the prewarming group could not undergo thoracoscopic esophagectomy because of conversion to thoracotomy. The intraoperative core temperature was measured in 50 and 48 patients classified into the control and prewarming groups, respectively. Patients in the prewarming group wore a Bair Hugger warming gown (3 M, Maplewood, MN, USA) in the ward for 30 min before entering the operation room. The primary outcome measure was the difference in the intraoperative body core temperature between the control and prewarming groups, and the secondary outcome measure was the difference in postoperative infectious complications between the control and prewarming groups.
Results: The intraoperative core temperature was significantly different between the two groups at each 30-min time point from the starting of operation to the ending of the thoracic procedure (P < 0.001). The incidence of infectious surgical complications was not significantly different between the control and prewarming groups (30.0% vs. 14.6%, respectively; P = 0.11).
Conclusion: The prewarming prophylaxis method was effective for maintaining normothermia during thoracoscopic esophagectomy.
Keywords: Esophagectomy; Hypothermia; Minimally invasive esophagectomy; Prewarming; Surgical site infection; Thoracoscopic esophagectomy.