Prognostic impact of postoperative morbidity after esophagectomy for esophageal cancer: Supplementary exploratory analysis of JCOG9907.

155 Background: Although the impact of postoperative complications, especially infectious complications (IC), on long-term survival after transthoracic esophagectomy remains controversial to date, we hypothesized that postoperative IC may affect tumor recurrence and survival of the patients (pts) undergoing transthoracic esophagectomy. Methods: The data from JCOG9907 (Ando N; Ann Surg Oncol 2012) was used to estimate the influence of IC on the outcome of current standard preoperative chemotherapy followed by surgery for clinical stage II/III squamous cell carcinoma of the thoracic esophagus. IC were classified into three: pneumonia, anastomotic leakage, and the others. OS and PFS were estimated by landmark method at 6 months from randomization. Univariate and multivariate analyses using Cox proportional hazard model were performed to assess the impact of postoperative complications on the survival after right-transthoracic esophagectomy with extended lymphadenectomy. Results: Among the 152 analyzed pts, t...