Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2017; 23(28): 5253-5256
Published online Jul 28, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i28.5253
Endoscopic occlusion with silicone spigots for the closure of refractory esophago-bronchiole fistula after esophagectomy
Masaya Uesato, Tsuguaki Kono, Yasunori Akutsu, Kentarou Murakami, Akiko Kagaya, Yorihiko Muto, Akira Nakano, Mizuho Aikawa, Tomohide Tamachi, Hiroyuki Amagai, Takahiro Arasawa, Yasuhide Muto, Hisahiro Matsubara
Masaya Uesato, Tsuguaki Kono, Yasunori Akutsu, Kentarou Murakami, Akiko Kagaya, Yorihiko Muto, Akira Nakano, Mizuho Aikawa, Tomohide Tamachi, Hiroyuki Amagai, Takahiro Arasawa, Yasuhide Muto, Hisahiro Matsubara, Department of Frontier Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba 260-8677, Japan
Author contributions: Uesato M wrote the manuscript; Uesato M, Kono T, Akutsu Y, Murakami K, Kagaya A, Muto Y, Nakano A, Aikawa M, Tamachi T, Amagai H, Arasawa T, Muto Y diagnosed and treated; all authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave his written informed consent authorizing use and disclosure of his protected health information.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors state that they have no conflict of interest regarding this case report.
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: Masaya Uesato, MD, Department of Frontier Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba 260-8670, Japan. uesato@faculty.chiba-u.jp
Telephone: +81-43-2262110 Fax: +81-43-2262113
Received: February 3, 2017
Peer-review started: February 9, 2017
First decision: April 21, 2017
Revised: May 4, 2017
Accepted: June 12, 2017
Article in press: June 12, 2017
Published online: July 28, 2017
Processing time: 174 Days and 17.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Anastomotic leakage, which is a complication of esophagectomy, sometimes causes a refractory fistula. An esophago-bronchiole fistula (EBF) is a relatively rare but serious complication. We performed endoscopic occlusion using an endobronchial Watanabe spigot (EWS), a type of silicone bronchial blocker that is widely used in the respiratory field to treat pulmonary air leak, hemoptysis and bronchopleural fistula. We herein report a new and unique technique using the EWS to close a refractory EBF after esophagectomy. This report is the first to show that endoscopic occlusion using the EWS through the esophagus can simply and safely repair a refractory fistula.