Anastomotic Techniques and Associated Morbidity in Total Minimally Invasive Transthoracic Esophagectomy

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe anastomotic techniques used for total minimally invasive transthoracic esophagectomy (ttMIE) and to analyze the associated morbidity. Background: ttMIE faces increasing application in surgical treatment of esophageal cancer. For esophagogastric reconstruction, different anastomotic techniques are currently used, but their effect on postoperative anastomotic leakage and morbidity has not been investigated. Patients and Methods: Patients were selected from a basic dataset, collected during a 5-year period from 13 international surgical high-volume centers. Endpoints were anastomotic leakage rate and postoperative morbidity in correlation to ana…