Patients with esophageal cancer and concomitant liver cirrhosis (LC) pose a surgical challenge because of the increased risk of postoperative complications and mortality. Purpose of this study was to review the existing literature and estimate perioperative short-term outcomes of esophagectomy in this patient population. Systematic review and meta-analysis. PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov were queried. The search was last updated on July 30th, 2024. Primary outcomes were anastomotic leak (AL) and 90 day mortality. Ten observational studies were included for a total of 387 patients with LC. The age of the included patients ranged from 35 to 85 years, 91.2% were males. The main causes of liver cirrhosis were alcoholic (75%) and viral hepatitis (20.4%). Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma was diagnosed in 58.7% of patients. Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy with intrathoracic anastomosis was reported in 69.9% of patients, while McKeown esophagectomy with cervical anastomosis was reported in 30.1% of patients. The estimated pooled prevalence of AL and 90-day mortality were 13% (95% CI = 6-24%
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