[Is the palliative treatment of cancer of the esophagus by retrosternal bypass justified?].

We report a retrospective study of 52 patients with unresectable carcinomas of the esophagus treated with substernal bypass without resection. There were 49 squamous-cell carcinomas and 3 adenocarcinomas. The site of the tumor was the middle third of the esophagus in 32 patients, the upper third in 9, and the lower third in 11.