An Investigation of Factors Related to Food Intake Ability and Swallowing Difficulty After Surgery for Thoracic Esophageal Cancer.
Taichi Mafune, Shinya Mikami, Takehito Otsubo and 5 others
PMID 31037328WHAT IT FOUND
In 32 patients, vocal cord paralysis after thoracic esophageal cancer surgery did not show a relation to inability to ingest food.
Cervical lymph node dissection was associated with inability to ingest food on postoperative day 7.
Key findings
01Inability to ingest food was not significantly related to recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis: 9 of 21 patients with paralysis and 2 of 11 patients without paralysis were unable to ingest food (P = 0.25).
02Cervical lymph node dissection was significantly related to inability to ingest food in multivariable analysis (P = 0.0075).
03Postoperative videofluoroscopy showed some swallowing abnormality in 24 of 32 patients and inability to ingest food in 11 of 32 patients.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 32 patients, so the analysis of cancer stage and other subgroups was limited. It was done at one center, so results may not apply to hospitals using different surgical techniques. Vocal cord paralysis was diagnosed only on postoperative day 1 by bedside laryngoscopy, and unilateral versus bilateral paralysis and other laryngeal details were not recorded. Food intake ability was judged by videofluoroscopy, which the authors say is somewhat subjective and was agreed by the clinicians. The study was retrospective and examined associations after surgery.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that cervical lymph node dissection causes inability to ingest food. This was a small retrospective study, and the analysis showed an association with inability to ingest food, not a proven cause.