Clinical evaluation of ten-year survival cases after operation for upper and mid-thoracic esophageal cancer.

From 1946 to 1976, we examined 1,329 patients who had undergone radical resection for upper and mid-thoracic cancer. Seven patients had a postoperative survival of more than twenty years, 58 more than ten and 137 more than five. Histological and pathological tests were performed: it was thus possible, particularly in patients with a survival of more than ten years, to grade the malignancy according to the classification for histologic malignancy proposed by us for several years (cellular atypism, structural atypism and infiltration). These pathological alterations were closely linked with the prognosis and survival time.