Increased Variance in Oral and Gastric Microbiome Correlates With Esophagectomy Anastomotic Leak

Reddy and colleagues evaluated oral, esophageal, and gastric microbial flora in 55 patients who underwent successful esophagectomy for adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, or benign disease. The authors did not observe significant patterns between microbiome diversity and tumor stage or histology. Patients who had anastomotic leak, however, showed a greater variance in the composition of preoperative oral flora versus intraoperative gastric flora than patients who did not (p = 0.015). The authors suggest that better understanding of the relationship between the microbiome and esophagectomy recovery could lead to new predictive or therapeutic approaches for esophageal anastomotic leak.