How many lymph nodes removed during esophagectomy?

NikiMo

christian e said:

MIE in PITTSBURGH
Jimbo C = I recently contacted Dr. Luketich and his PA. Am Stage IIB EsophCA guy looking for the RIGHT surgery and RIGHT surgeon.
Having reviewed the literature in depth - looks like JL is the man and his MIE approach is preferable to open procedure. Have finished 5 wks of Radiation and 5 weeks of chemo (simultaneous) at Hosp U PENN (great academic institution, with great surgeons - but primarily open TTE/THE). So my questions to you...how was your experience at PITT? How was JL? Length of your procedure? Peri-operative complications? Length of hospital stay? Projected length of recovery? Eating porterhouse steaks yet? Advice for me? And how are YOU doing?

We are UofP patients too!
Hey Christian,

Sorry you had to find your way to this board, but welcome. My husband is also a IIB EC guy, he had chemo and rads at UofP, his docs were/are Dr. Sun and Dr. Metz. He just had his surgery this Tuesday, he is doing good, out of the ICU and up and walking. He had his surgery done with Dr. Yang at John Hopkins, he is also an expert in the field but doesn't do MIE. My husband had a previous hernia surgery so we opted for the open Ivor Lewis so the surgeon could see the old repair and undo all of the adhesions. There are many on this board who have gone to Dr. L, for the MIE he seems like your best bet. But, we also have two people on the board who went to Fox Chase and had an MIE in the past two weeks.

Again welcome, and sorry you have to be here for this.

Niki
Wife of Jeff T2N1M0

flmo

christian e said:

MIE in PITTSBURGH
Jimbo C = I recently contacted Dr. Luketich and his PA. Am Stage IIB EsophCA guy looking for the RIGHT surgery and RIGHT surgeon.
Having reviewed the literature in depth - looks like JL is the man and his MIE approach is preferable to open procedure. Have finished 5 wks of Radiation and 5 weeks of chemo (simultaneous) at Hosp U PENN (great academic institution, with great surgeons - but primarily open TTE/THE). So my questions to you...how was your experience at PITT? How was JL? Length of your procedure? Peri-operative complications? Length of hospital stay? Projected length of recovery? Eating porterhouse steaks yet? Advice for me? And how are YOU doing?

MIE in Pittsburgh
Hi Christian,

I'm not Jimbo, but my husband had MIE with JL in feb. He had his first steak last week-6 months post-op. No problems swallowing,etc. Dr. L and his team are great. His PA, Chuck, is really encouraging to talk to. He's great in person, too! Good luck on your decision.

ArchTB

35
Tom had 35 nodes removed during his MIE at MSKCC. All came back negative and only one had signs of previous disease.

JimboC

christian e said:

MIE in PITTSBURGH
Jimbo C = I recently contacted Dr. Luketich and his PA. Am Stage IIB EsophCA guy looking for the RIGHT surgery and RIGHT surgeon.
Having reviewed the literature in depth - looks like JL is the man and his MIE approach is preferable to open procedure. Have finished 5 wks of Radiation and 5 weeks of chemo (simultaneous) at Hosp U PENN (great academic institution, with great surgeons - but primarily open TTE/THE). So my questions to you...how was your experience at PITT? How was JL? Length of your procedure? Peri-operative complications? Length of hospital stay? Projected length of recovery? Eating porterhouse steaks yet? Advice for me? And how are YOU doing?

My experience in Pittsburgh
My experience in Pittsburgh was great considering what I was there for. Every nurse or clinician I had treated me with the best care possible. My procedure lasted right around 10 hours. They had a tough time intubating me so I spent the night on the ventilator. Came off it the next morning and hit the ground running towards recovery. I did have a suspected chyle leak which extended my hospital stay to 7 days otherwise I would have been out in 5. I can pretty much eat everything I want now but in much smaller portions. Luketich was incredible. Very calming and confident man. His entire team was amazing. I seem to remember a 2 month recovery time to resume most normal activities. I'm two months out now and I could agree with that. I'm still on post op chemo so my recovery will be a little longer.

As for advice, I would say that you can't go wrong with UPMC and Luketich. I told my wife before we went up there that even if I couldn't hav the MIE, I still wanted Luketich to do the open procedure. They treat so many patients, their numbers speak for themselves. I would also add, don't get discouraged. This cancer is tough and it is easy to get down.

Best of luck and take care!

linda1120

ArchTB said:

35
Tom had 35 nodes removed during his MIE at MSKCC. All came back negative and only one had signs of previous disease.

nodes
Jim had MIE at OHSU in Portland, Oregon and they removed 20 lymph nodes. All were negative!!!!!!