Blood, Nutritional Findings and Esophagitis in Long Surviving Patients after Gastrectomy

Michio Maeta, Tetsu Shimizu, Ryuichi Hamazoe, Atsunobu Murakami, Michio Ohta, Nobuaki Kaibara, Shigemasa Koga

First Department of Surgery, Tottori University School of Medicine

We have treated 185 patients with esophageal cancer, 20 of them had undergone gastrectomy. Considerating the possible association between gastrectomy and esophageal cnacer, postgastrectomy changes in blood profiles and nutritional status, and postgastrectomy reflux esophatitis have been suggested as contributory factors. To clarify such associations, we analyzed these factors in 62 patients who had survived for a long period after gastrectomy for benign diseases. As a result, we found no evidence of any severe deterioration in blood profiles or nutritional status. We found evidence of endoscopic esophagitis in 15 (24%); the centers of the esophagitis were all located in the lower esophagus. Histologically, acute or chronic inflammation was present in 100% and 69%, respectively. Epithelial dysplasia of varying degrees of severity was detected in 26 patients (42%); there were more patients whose grade of dysplasia was most severe in the lower esophagus. These data suggest that postgastrectomy gastroesophageal reflux is more likely than postgastrectomy changes in nutritional status to be a possible contributory factor to the development of subsequent esophageal cancer.

Key words
postgastrectomy esophageal cancer, blood and nutritional findings in patients with esophageal cancer

Reprint requests
Michio Maeta First Department of Surgery, Tottori University School of Medicine
36-1 Nishimachi, Yonago, 683 JAPAN

Accepted
February 14, 1990

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