Factors influencing difficulty of the thoracic procedure in minimally invasive esophagectomy

Background Minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) is being increasingly performed worldwide. When performing MIE, we sometimes experienced difficulties due to a narrow upper mediastinum or a middle to lower thoracic esophagus hidden by the projection of the vertebral body. However, there were no reports regarding the influence of anatomical factors on the difficulty of performing MIE. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether anatomical factors could be related to the difficulty of the thoracic procedure in MIE.