Guest Editor(s)
-
- Prof. Sumeet K. Mittal
- Norton Thoracic Institute, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, 500 W. Thomas Road, Suite 500, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Clinical and Translational Sciences, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE, USA.
E-mail
-
- Prof. Uberto Fumagalli Romario
- Digestive Surgery Center, European Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, Milan, Italy.
E-mail
Special Issue Introduction
Minimally invasive surgery has become a standard of care for many patients affected by esophageal diseases.
Most patients with benign esophageal disease with surgical indication undergo a minimally invasive (MI) procedure, either peroral or laparoscopic or thoracoscopic.
Some of these procedures have become a routine while others are still in the learning curve; in some cases different MI techniques can be chosen to treat the same disease. Reflections on specific complications can guide the choice between the two procedures: this is probably the case for gastroesophageal reflux after treatment of esophageal motor disorders. Some procedures are new and the rate of their specific postoperative complications is an important parameter to evaluate the effectiveness of the technique: this is the case of transoral myotomy of the upper esophageal sphincter.
Some of these procedures are quite rare due to the rarity of the disease: this is for example the case of thoracic diverticula of the esophagus. In this setting it is important to discuss the way to reduce the incidence of potentially very severe complications.
Esophagectomy for malignant esophageal diseases is a very complex procedure: also in this field, MI procedures are being constantly applied in order to try to decrease the physiological impact of this surgical procedure. It has become evident that these techniques allow a satisfactory oncologic result with good functional results in cases without complications.
There is still uncertainty on the actual rate of postoperative complications after MI esophagectomy and stronger data are needed as a benchmark for this procedure. Beyond that there is still a discussion on the possible efficacy of robotics in reducing this rate.
Containment of postoperative complications, both in the case of malignant or benign disease, is the primary aim of surgeons.
This special issue of Mini-invasive Surgery aims to contribute to giving an updated view of the minimally invasive procedures for esophageal diseases, considering the results in terms of improvement of postoperative complications and in terms of postoperative recovery.
Since this special issue was conceived during the pandemic outbreak of COVID infection, a short paragraph is dedicated to understanding how the virus infection might influence this particular branch of upper GI surgery.
Submission Deadline
31 Aug 2020
Mini-invasive Surgery
misjournal.net
