Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2016; 22(22): 5246-5253
Published online Jun 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i22.5246
Post-discharge complications after esophagectomy account for high readmission rates
Sophia Y Chen, Daniela Molena, Miloslawa Stem, Benedetto Mungo, Anne O Lidor
Sophia Y Chen, Miloslawa Stem, Benedetto Mungo, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, United States
Daniela Molena, Thoracic Surgery Service, Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, United States
Anne O Lidor, Section of Minimally Invasive, Foregut and Bariatric Surgery, Division of General Surgery, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI 53792, United States
Author contributions: Chen SY, Molena D, Stem M, Mungo B and Lidor AO designed the study, wrote the manuscript and made the decision to submit; Chen SY, Stem M and Lidor AO contributed to the data collection, analysis, interpretation.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed, approved, and deemed exempt by the Institutional Review Board of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Daniela Molena is a speaker for Novadaq Corporation; the remaining authors have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available. American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the hospitals participating in the ACS-NSQIP are the source of the data used herein; they have not verified and are not responsible for the statistical validity of the data analysis or the conclusions derived by the authors.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Daniela Molena, MD, Associate Attending, Director of Esophageal Surgery, Thoracic Surgery Service, Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States. molenad@mskcc.org
Telephone: +1-212-6393870 Fax: +1-646-2277106
Received: February 17, 2016
Peer-review started: February 19, 2016
First decision: March 9, 2016
Revised: April 5, 2016
Accepted: April 15, 2016
Article in press: April 15, 2016
Published online: June 14, 2016
Processing time: 106 Days and 6.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: In this study, we used the 2005-2013 ACS-NSQIP database to identify the rate of post-discharge complications, their associated risk factors, and their influence on early hospital readmission after esophagectomy. This report demonstrates that post-discharge complications after esophagectomy account for a significant number of reoperations and readmissions. We believe that implementing prevention strategies to decrease common post-discharge complications like venous thromboembolism and infection should be considered, and that directing our energies toward optimizing patient health prior to discharge may improve overall surgical outcomes.