title: Transhiatal versus transthoracic esophagectomy for clinical stage I esophageal carcinoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A study was carried out to compare the actuarial survival and postoperative mortality in two groups of the patients with Clinical Stage I esophageal carcinoma resected with or without intercostal thoracotomy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Group 1 included twenty-one patients resected with a transhiatal approach and Group 2 had twenty patients resected with other transthoracic methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Neither the Kaplan-Meier nor the comparative Mantel-Haeszel test demonstrated a significant difference. Nevertheless the early postoperative deaths are higher in Group 2 than Group 1.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In spite of the incoherent relation between clinical and post-resection staging, we believe the transhiatal approach for clinical Stage I Esophageal carcinoma is a good decision, especially in patients with liver or bronchopulmonary associated damage. At present, we perform a laparoscopy in theater to check the liver and avoid "surprise cirrhosis".
authors.affiliation: Hospital Aranzazu, San Sebastian, Spain.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Berdejo
mesh_terms: D000206:Actuarial Analysis; D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D016629:Esophagectomy / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013908:Thoracotomy