Esophagectomy complications more likely for Asian Americans

Editor's Note:

Already shown to have a heightened risk of esophageal cancer, Asian Americans are also more likely to experience complications from esophagectomy, according to a study published January 4 in the American Journal of Surgery.

The retrospective analysis, performed using ACS-NSQIP esophagectomy targeted database 2016–2021, compared 30-day postoperative outcomes for 229 Asian Americans and 5,404 Caucasians. After applying 1:3 propensity-score matching, 687 Caucasians were included. Results show that Asian Americans experienced more complications, including:

• Pulmonary complications (22.27 ​% vs 16.01 ​%, p ​= ​0.04) especially pneumonia (16.59 ​% vs 11.06 ​%, p ​= ​0.04)
• renal dysfunction (2.62 ​% vs 0.44 ​%, p ​= ​0.01), and particularly progressive renal insufficiency (1.31 ​% vs 0.15 ​%, p ​< ​0.05)
• bleeding events (18.34 ​% vs 9.02 ​%, p ​< ​0.01).

Asian Americans also experienced longer LOS (11.83 ​± ​9.39 vs 10.23 ​± ​7.34 days, p ​= ​0.03). Researchers note that more investigation will be required to determine underlying causes and potential mitigation strategies for these disparities.