Thoracoscopic assisted colon interposition for long-gap esophageal atresia: a novel technique

The purpose of this work is to present preliminary results of a novel technique of thoracoscopically assisted colon interposition for esophageal replacement in long-gap esophageal atresia (LGEA). Management of LGEA remains a challenge. When primary repair is not possible, esophagocoloplasty is our first choice for esophageal replacement; we usually place the colon retrosternally, but we treated two patients with LGEA who had previously undergone a sternotomy. Therefore, we decided to place the graft via an intrathoracic route, but the passage of the colic graft into the thorax was performed video-assisted thoracoscopic. The follow-up of the two patients is now 4 years. They are both currently in good general conditions and their feeding behavior is comparable to the other infants of equal in age. We have not got any complications related to the technique, in particular any problems associated with the thoracoscopically assisted colonic replacement. We found that short-term survival was accomplished with apparently equivalent outcomes of thoracoscopically assisted colon interposition for LGEA.