The end of the 19th century was characterised by a true race to perform the first esophagectomy.Franz Torek (1) won the race by performing the first successful transthoracic (and transpleural) resection of the esophagus in 1913. The operation was a formidable undertaking. The patient, a woman, presented with a midthird squamous cell carcinoma. During surgery the tumor appeared to be attached to the left bronchus requiring a "longitudinal cut in the bronchus" followed by a repair if this incision with silk sutures. Reconstruction was not attempted and the patient was fed using a rubber tube connecting the proximal esophagostomy with a gastrostomy; she lived for 13 years.Further attempts made in the following years were mostly unsuccessful due to lack of technology to adequately ventilate the lungs. Only after the introduction of safe orotracheal intubation in the late twenties by Rowbotham (2) and Magill (3) surgeons could undertake more safely such complex operation as a transthoracic esophagectomy. Torek's operation was performed via left thoracoabdominal incision. In the subsequent years surgeons figured out that according to the location of the tumor different access routes could improve exposure and access to the tumor. Tumors of the lower half were preferentially approached from the left side (4,5) whereas supracarinal tumors were better approached from the right side (6,7).
Review Article on Esophageal SurgeryUniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery in esophageal diseases: an introduction
Toni LerutDepartment of Thoracic Surgery, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, BelgiumCorrespondence to: Toni Lerut. Emeritus Professor of Surgery; Emeritus Chairman Department of Thoracic Surgery, University Hospital Leuven, Belgium. Email: Toni.lerut@med.kuleuven.be.Abstract: Esophagectomy followed by reconstruction is one of the most complex interventions in surgery of the alimentary tract. Over several decennia dedicated surgeons have realized a constant decrease in 30-day mortality being now well below 5% in expert hands. However quality of life after such intervention is often jeopardized by the high incidence of complications in particular pulmonary infections. The introduction and presently widespread use of total minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) has re resulted in a substantial decrease of these pulmonary complications along with a decrease of the need for ICU admission and a decrease of length of hospital stay. But still a non-negligible share of patients may suffer from, sometimes severe, posthoracotomy pain. A problem that is thought to be the result of the manipulation of instruments at the port sites causing damage to the intercostal nerves. The growing popularity of uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) in particular in lung surgery claims to diminish this problem. Currently there is little experience in the use of uniportal VATS for esophagectomy which seems to be in part related to its higher degree of technical complexity. As a result there are no published data on the results ...