Table 2.

Clinical study characteristics

Author	Patients (n)	Diagnosis of leakage	General treatment	Investigational treatment
Intrathoracic
Griffin 2001 [18]	13	Contrast/endoscopy	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric, mediastinal, and thoracic drainage	Conservative treatment
Holscher 2003 [19]	6	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	Gastric drainage	Surgery
Hunerbein 2004 [21]	9	Contrast/endoscopy	Antibiotics, thoracic drainage	Stent (plastic)
Kauer 2008 [23]	10	Contrast/endoscopy	Mediastinal drainage	Stent (SEMS)
Tuebergen 2008 [31]	18	Contrast/endoscopy	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric, mediastinal, and thoracic drainage	Stent (SEMS)
Qin 2010 [29]	5	Contrast	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric, mediastinal, and thoracic drainage	Conservative treatment
Hu 2011 [20]	23	Contrast/CT	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, thoracic drainage	Endoscopic drainage
Hu 2011 [20]	17	Contrast/CT	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric and thoracic drainage	Conservative treatment
Jiang 2011 [22]	7	Contrast	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric and thoracic drainage	Conservative treatment
Jiang 2011 [22]	25	Contrast	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, thoracic drainage	Endoscopic drainage
Yin 2012 [33]	28	Contrast/CT	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric drainage	Endoscopic drainage
Al-Issa 2014 [15]	15	Endoscopy/CT	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, thoracic drainage	Stent (SEMS)
Bludau 2014 [17]	5	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	NA	Endoscopic VAC
Shuto 2017 [30]	19	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	Antibiotics, nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric, mediastinal, and thoracic drainage	Endoscopic drainage
Cervical
Orringer 1986 [28]	5	NA	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric drainage, wound drainage	Endoscopic dilatation
Bhasin 2000 [16]	8	Contrast	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, wound drainage	Endoscopic dilatation
Korst 2005 [24]	13	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	Antibiotics, wound drainage	Conservative treatment
Lindeman 2008 [27]	6	NA	Nil by mouth, wound drainage	Stent (SEMS)
Larburu 2013 [25]	9	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	NA	Stent (SEMS)
Leenders 2013 [26]	9	NA	Wound drainage or percutaneous drainage	Stent (SEMS)
Van Rossum 2017 [32]	23	Contrast/endoscopy/CT	Nil by mouth, enteral feeding tube, gastric drainage, wound drainage	Conservative treatment

Conservative treatment = antibiotics/nil by mouth/enteral feeding tube/gastric drainage/mediastinal drainage/thoracic drainage/percutaneous drainage/wound drainage; contrast = contrast swallow examination

CT computerized tomography, NA not available, SEMS self-expandable metallic stent