An oesophagectomy is a major operation. You are usually admitted the day before surgery, and the operation will take most of the following day (6-8 hours). On the day of your operation you will be taken to the operating theatre and be given a general anaesthetic.

The operation involves two stages. The first stage involves making a cut from the bottom of your sternum (breast bone) to just below your belly button. Your stomach is going to be used to replace your oesophagus, and so the first part of the operation involves freeing up your stomach on its blood supply so that it can be easily pulled into your chest.

A feeding jejunostomy will also be put in place. This is a thin tube that passes through your abdominal wall into your small bowel and is used to give you feed after the operation.

Your abdomen is then closed, and whilst you are still asleep you are turned onto your left side and a cut is made in your right chest (thoracotomy). This allows access to your oesophagus. The lung on that side is collapsed by the anaesthetist to allow better access. The oesophagus is freed up and removed, and your stomach is pulled into you chest and stapled to the small remnant top end of the oesophagus.
At the time of surgery, lymph nodes that are near the tumour are also removed (lymphadenectomy).
You will be woken up after the operation and will be taken to the critical care ward (usually HDU, sometimes ITU)- which is ward 38. You will have several tubes that have been placed at the time of surgery that you will notice when you wake up.

You will be woken up after the operation, and then you will be taken to the critical care ward (usually HDU, sometimes ITU) .
You will have several tubes that have been placed that you will notice when you wake up. These include

– A catheter (a fine tube that goes into your bladder to help monitor your urine output)
– A nasogastric tube (to decompress your stomach)
– Usually two chest drains (tubes coming out of your chest)
– Local anaesthetic catheters- two fine tubes in the abdomen either side of the wound and one next to your chest wound. These slowly release local anaesthetic to give good pain control.

A total gastrectomy is a major operation. You are usually admitted on the day of surgery, and the operation will take approximately half a day (3-4 hours). You will be taken to the operating theatre and be given a general anaesthetic.

The operation involves making a cut from just below the bottom of your sternum (breast bone), to just below your belly button. Your stomach is freed up and the lymph nodes that are near by are all removed with the stomach (lymphadenectomy).

Rather than joining the two ends together some small bowel is brought up to join to the oesophagus and stapled together, and the bit of small bowel that bile drains into, which is located just after where the bottom end of the stomach was cut, is joined downstream to prevent bile reflux. This is called a Roux-en Y reconstruction.

We also place a fine tube in through the nose, that goes down stream into the small bowel. We do not routinely use this for feeding, but if a problem with the join emerges we can then use this to provide nutrition.

Before closing the abdomen we typically place two drains in your abdomen, which are easily pulled out approximately a week after surgery.

You will be woken up after the operation, and then you may either be taken to the critical care ward (usually HDU, sometimes ITU) or sometimes you may go back to Ward 36 which is the specialist Oesophago-Gastric ward.

You will have several tubes that have been placed that you will notice when you wake up. These include

– A catheter (a fine tube that goes into your bladder to help monitor your urine output)
– A nasojejunal tube (to provide nutrition and used in the event of a complication)
– Two abdominal drains (tubes coming out of your abdomen)
– Local anaesthetic catheters- two fine tubes in the abdomen either side of the wound. These slowly release local anaesthetic to give good pain control.

A subtotal gastrectomy is a major operation. You are usually admitted on the day of surgery, and the operation will take approximately half a day (3-4 hours). You will be taken to the operating theatre and be given a general anaesthetic.

The operation involved making a cut from just below the bottom of your sternum (breast bone), to just below your belly button. Your stomach is freed up and the lymph nodes that are near by are all removed (lymphadenectomy) with approximately the bottom 75% of the stomach.
Rather than joining the two ends together some small bowel is brought up to join to the small remaining part of the stomach and joined together, and the bit of small bowel that bile drains into, which is located just after where the bottom end of the stomach was cut, is joined downstream to prevent bile reflux. This is called a Roux-en Y reconstruction.

We also place a fine tube in through the nose, that goes down stream into the remaining part of the stomach to help decompress it (nasogastric tube).

We typically leave a drain at the time of the operation, which is easily pulled out approximately a week after surgery. Your abdomen is then closed.

You will be woken up after the operation, and then you may either be taken to the critical care ward (usually HDU, sometimes ITU) or sometimes you may go back to Ward 36 which is the specialist Oesophago-Gastric ward.

You will have several tubes that have been placed that you will notice when you wake up. These include

– A catheter (a fine tube that goes into your bladder to help monitor your urine output)
– A nasogastric tube (to decompress the small remaining part of the stomach)
– One abdominal drain (tube coming out of your abdomen)
– Local anaesthetic catheters- two fine tubes in the abdomen either side of the wound . These slowly release local anaesthetic to give good pain control.