ABSTRACT
There has been an improvement in the outcome of surgical resection for esophageal carcinoma in recent years (1). In a review of publications of esophagectomy performed during the decade 1990-2000, the overall mortality from surgery was 6.7%, compared with 13% for the period 1980-1988 (2). Overall five-year survival for those undergoing resection currently ranges from 23% for Western series to 30.5% for Eastern patients (2). This may be in part due to better selection of cases through more accurate staging using endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), cross-sectional imaging, and more recently, positron emission tomography (PET) scanning (3).
