High volume centers for esophagectomy: what is the number needed to achieve low postoperative mortality?

Aimed at reducing surgical deaths, several initiatives have attempted to establish volume-based referral strategies in high risk surgery. The detailed analysis of the literature of the last 10 years, comprising 13 papers on esophageal cancer, shows a clear reduction in postoperative mortality with increasing case volumes per year. Single papers have analyzed the main reasons for this phenomenon and showed that postoperative complication rates are lower in high-volume hospitals and management of complications is more successful. Further, long-term prognosis is also correlated to case-volume. In conclusion, the analysis shows that only with the experience of more than 20 esophagectomies per year can a significant reduction of the mortality, down to 4.9%, be achieved. Based on this survey, surgery of esophageal cancer is a task for high-volume hospitals because of decreased postoperative mortality and improved long-term prognosis compared with low volume hospitals.