Complications of feeding esophagotomy. Advantages of a new esophagotomy tube.
Patients with head and neck cancer frequently require prolonged tube feeding. Cervical esophagotomy is often the preferred method of tube feeding, but may result in reflux esophagitis with mucosal ulceration and stricture. This article reports the use of a short, wide-lumen, flanged, silicone tube designed specifically for esophagotomy. The complications encountered in 100 consecutive esophagotomies using polyethylene tubes are compared with the complications in 38 esophagotomies using the new tube. The common problems of esophagitis, wound irritation, tubal obstruction, and accidental extubation were reduced or eliminated with this new tube.
D004750:Enteral Nutrition / Q000295:instrumentation; D004947:Esophagus / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D011183:Postoperative Complications