esophagectomy pericarditis

Constrictive pericarditis is a rare condition characterized by clinical signs of right heart failure subsequent to the loss of pericardial compliance. We report a case of constrictive pericarditis due to pericardial metastasis in a patient with a history of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma that had a pathological complete response (pCR) to preoperative chemoradiotherapy. A 66-year-old woman was referred to our division for the treatment of advanced esophageal cancer. Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery esophagectomy (VATSE) with 3-field lymphadenectomy was performed after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NAC-CRT)...

Peptic ulcer occurring in the gastric conduit for esophageal reconstruction sometimes penetrates into the mediastinal structures. We herein reported a case of pericardial penetration of gastric tube ulcer successfully treated with thoracoscopic pericardial drainage. A 66-year-old Japanese man, who had undergone esophagectomy for esophageal cancer 20 months before, visited our emergency room complaining severe back pain. Computed tomography revealed gastric tube ulcer penetrated into the pericardial space. Thoracoscopic pericardiotomy and drainage was performed and the patient made an uneventful recovery...

Fistula formation between the pericardium and the gastrointestinal tract is rare. Enteropericardial fistulae may present dramatically, many have prodromal symptoms even though they are not symptoms usually associated with esophageal disease. Prompt diagnosis and expedient surgery can result in survival. We describe three cases of enteropericardial fistulae diagnosed during emergency surgery for sepsis or hemorrhage. All had previous surgery though the details were not available to the operating surgeons because of the time that had passed since their original operation...

Cardiac tamponade constitutes an exceptional form of actinomycosis. We describe a case of primary hepatic actinomycosis presenting as purulent pericarditis with cardiac tamponade in a 20-year-old patient with previous esophagectomy and colonic interposition, successfully managed by computed tomography-guided percutaneous drainage and a prolonged course of antibiotic treatment. Actinomyces israelii was identified in the pericardial fluid by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The literature on the simultaneous presentation of cardiac and hepatic actinomycosis is reviewed...

A 75-year-old male, known to have achalasia, was admitted to the intensive care unit with massive upper gastrointestinal bleeding and sepsis. He had a history of purulent pericarditis 18 months earlier. He also presented with atrial fibrillation associated with a cerebral transient ischemic accident two months earlier. A contrast computed tomography scan showed an atrio-esophageal fistula with active extravasation of contrast. He was operated on via a median sternotomy, and the defects in the atrial wall, inferior vena cava and diaphragm were closed using pericardial patches...

Surgery and radiation therapy have been used to treat esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. However, treatment outcomes have not yet been extensively investigated. The aim of this study was to compare surgery and radiation therapy for clinical T1 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. A total of 67 clinical T1 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients were treated between January 1997 and December 2005; 29 had undergone radical esophagectomy (surgery group) and 38 were treated with definitive radiation therapy (radiation group)...

HYPOTHESIS: Limited information is available on late complications of multimodality therapy for locally advanced esophageal cancer. This study focuses on postesophagectomy benign pleural and pericardial complications to determine their prevalence, temporal pattern, and treatment, and their association with induction chemoradiotherapy and influence on survival. METHODS: Between March 1987 and November 2001, 291 patients with clinical stage > or = IIA esophageal cancer underwent esophagectomy; 106 received induction chemoradiotherapy...

Esophagopericardial fistula is a rare and severe complication, involving several benign, malignant and traumatic pathologies of the esophagus. Only few cases of esophagopericardial fistula have been published so far, as compared to more frequently reported cases of gastropericardial fistula. We report on a 25-year-old female with an esophagopericardial fistula following retrosternal esophagogastroplasty for esophageal caustic stenosis. One month before admission to our hospital, the patient had fever and nonradiating substernal chest pain which was relieved by aspirin, unfortunately without adequate antacid therapy...

Cancer of the esophagus continues to be a threat to public health. The common practice is esophagectomy for surgically resectable tumors and radiochemotherapy for locally advanced, unresectable tumors. However, local regional tumor control and overall survival of esophageal cancer patients after the standard therapies remain poor, approximately 30% of patients treated with surgery only will develop local recurrence, and 50% to 60% patients treated with radiochemotherapy only fail local regionally due to persistent disease or local recurrence...

We report a rare case of cardiac tamponade after esophageal resection for esophageal cancer. A 69-year-old man underwent subtotal esophagectomy and reconstruction of the gastric tube with cervical anastomosis via the poststernal route and three-field lymphadectomy via a median sternotomy. On postoperative day 4, the patient developed dyspnea, chest oppression, and hemodynamic instability due to cardiac tamponade. Emergency percutaneous catheter drainage was performed to manage the cardiac tamponade. Acute pericarditis due to the original surgical procedure was suspected to be the cause of the tamponade...

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Since the introduction of antibiotics into clinical practice, purulent pericarditis has become a rare disease. The major complication of the standard management for this condition is constrictive pericarditis. We report two cases of purulent pericarditis in which intrapericardial fibrinolysis was performed in order to minimize this complication. The first case was a 38-year-old man admitted to our intensive care unit (ICU) for management of constrictive pericarditis complicating purulent pericarditis diagnosed 17 days previously...

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A case of gastroatrial fistula following resection of a carcinoma of the mid-esophagus and re-establishment of the alimentary tract with a cervical esophagogastrostomy is presented. Three episodes of moderate upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage secondary to chronic peptic ulcer of the stomach placed in the thorax occurred three years after the operation. At this time, the patient was also admitted to the hospital with diagnosis of pericarditis of unknown etiology. Three years later the patient had a massive and fatal episode of upper gastrointestinal bleeding...