A nutritional and immunological assessment was respectively performed in 75 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus. Abnormal nutritional and/or immunological values were present in 37 patients (50 per cent) and absent in 38. The tumour was resectable in 27 patients (71 per cent) with normal values and only in 11 among the 37 (29 per cent) with abnormal values (P less than 0.001). Complications after resection including death, pneumonia and anastomotic failure were not significantly different in the two groups of patients except for anastomotic failure. This observation suggests that reduction of surgical complications by preoperative nutritional therapy might be expected only in few patients with oesophageal carcinoma.

Respiratory function in the first four days after elective cholecystectomy has been compared in 15 women in whom abdominal incision was transverse and 15 in whom it was median vertical. Ventilatory function (vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in one second) and blood gas tensions (partial pressures of oxygen and of carbon dioxide in arterial blood, arterial whole-blood carbon dioxide, and alveolo-arterial oxygen tension difference) were determined on the day before operation and on the first, second and fourth postoperative days. Ventilatory function was depressed postoperatively in all the patients, but the depression was significantly less, and of significantly shorter duration, after the transverse than after the median vertical approach. Significant changes in blood gas tensions were noted postoperatively after both incisions, but without significant difference between the two groups.

Experience with the EEA stapler device used in 30 esophagogastric resections for cancer with intrathoracic anastomosis, is reported. The mortality rate was 13.3%. The anastomotic failure rate was 3.3% (1/30) with only one death; three asymptomatic blind fistulas were found on a routine contrast examination of the anastomosis. It is felt that esophagogastric EEA stapled anastomosis associated with an omental graft is a very safe technique.