Tab. II.

Benefits and limitations of laparoscopic thoracic surgery in the treatment of patients with esophageal cancer

Minimally invasive esophagectomy – benefits	Minimally invasive esophagectomy – limitations
Smaller external surgical injury Smaller amount of blood transfusion [28, 32]	Comparable internal surgical injury Conversion required in 3% to 18% of cases [33, 34] Longer surgery time [22]
Lower rate of surgical site infections [36] Lower rate of respiratory complications [28, 29]	Comparable frequency of pulmonary complications and perioperative mortality [24, 34]
Lower rate of anastomotic fistulas [36] Shorter ICU stay [23, 28, 35] Shorter mean hospitalization time [23, 28, 36]	Comparable rate of anastomotic fistulas [32] Comparable mean hospitalization time [32]
	No cost analysis – the immediate higher cost of MIE operations (endostaplers) may be compensated by the shorter ICU stay [37] High cost of robotically assisted operations
MIE – oncologically equivalent to open surgery (similar number of excised lymph nodes [23, 32] comparable 5-year survival – approx. 40% [25, 27])
	Long learning curve (> 30 operations); MIE is preferred by surgeons in high-volume centers [31] Training surgeons in Polish conditions is difficult