Hand-assisted endoscopic esophagectomy for esophageal cancer.

Radical esophagectomy is a highly invasive operation for esophageal cancer, and improved techniques are being sought to reduce the invasiveness of this procedure. We devised a method in which an assistant inserts their left hand into the thoracic cavity, and the operator inserts their left hand into the abdominal cavity through a small incision in the upper quadrant during an endoscopic procedure. Between 1996 and 1999, we performed endoscopic esophagectomy on 18 patients.