Surgical implications of malnutrition and immunodeficiency in patients with carcinoma of the oesophagus.

A nutritional and immunological assessment was respectively performed in 75 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus. Abnormal nutritional and/or immunological values were present in 37 patients (50 per cent) and absent in 38. The tumour was resectable in 27 patients (71 per cent) with normal values and only in 11 among the 37 (29 per cent) with abnormal values (P less than 0.001). Complications after resection including death, pneumonia and anastomotic failure were not significantly different in the two groups of patients except for anastomotic failure. This observation suggests that reduction of surgical complications by preoperative nutritional therapy might be expected only in few patients with oesophageal carcinoma.