title: Which factors are associated with extremely short-term survival after surgery in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is associated with a short median survival and low cure rates. The postoperative survival time of some patients with ESCC is extremely short. It is important to understand risk factors in subsets of patients associated with extremely short-term survival. The standard factors such as T and N stage, which are predictive of actuarial survival, become less important as patients live for ≤1 year. However, the prevalence of these factors in these patient populations has not been well documented. We evaluated factors predictive of ≤1 year survival in this research.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed 1596 patients underwent esophagectomy for ESCC retrospectively. The demographic and clinicopathologic characteristics were compared between patients who died within 1 year of esophagectomy and patients who survived more than 1 year after esophagectomy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Univariate analysis showed significant differences between the two groups regarding gender, weight loss, comorbidity, neoadjuvant treatment, completeness of resection, pathological T stage, pathological N stage, histologic grade, the number of metastatic lymph nodes, postoperative complications, postoperative pulmonary infection and postoperative hospital stay. Based on logistic regression analysis, significant factors associated with extremely short-term survival were male gender, incomplete tumor resection, higher pathological T stage, higher pathological N stage and postoperative pulmonary infection.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The independent positive predictors for extremely short-term survival are male gender, incomplete tumor resection and postoperative pulmonary infection besides higher pathological T stage and higher pathological N stage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jingeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhiru
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhenfei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qinghang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D000077277:Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma; D016629:Esophagectomy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012189:Retrospective Studies
keywords: esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; esophagectomy; prognosis