Consensus and controversies of surgical approach selection in the treatment for thoracic esophageal cancers

Abstract

Esophageal cancer is one of the most prevalent carcinoma with an incidence ranking at the fifth and the mortality at the fourth among all the carcinomas in China. Up to now, surgery-based multi-modality treatment is still the most effective treatment for esophageal carcinoma. The surgical approaches for esophageal cancer include left and right thoracic approaches. Esophagectomy through left thoracotomy is the earliest approach applied for esophageal cancer in China, and now is still used frequently for esophageal cancer in northern China. However, left thoracic approach is insufficient in the lymph node dissection for superior mediastinum and abdomen, especially for the tracheoesophageal groove and para-recurrent laryngeal nerve nodes. On the contrary, right thoracic approach can achieve complete thoracic and abdominal field(two-field) lymph node dissection, especially the tracheoesophageal groove and para-recurrent laryngeal nerve nodes, which may eventually improve the survival of the patients with esophageal cancer. This article summarizes the results of lymph node dissection and prognosis based on published literatures through left thoracic approach versus through right thoracic approach for esophageal cancer, comments on recent controversies and consensus: for resectable thoracic esophageal carcinoma, resection of thoracic esophageal carcinoma with 2-field or 3-field lymph node dissection through right thoracic approach should be recommended as the major treatment mode, but this consensus was made based on retrospective studies, and the evidence is only level III(, therefore, prospective randomized studies with larger sample size are warranted. The selection of surgical approach for the lower thoracic esophageal cancer patients without upper mediastinal lymph node enlargement is also the direction of future clinical trials.