%0 Journal Article %T Comparisons of short-term outcomes between robot-assisted and thoraco-laparoscopic esophagectomy with extended two-field lymph node dissection for resectable thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma %A Hong Yang %A Jianhua Fu %A Junying Chen %A Qianwen Liu %A Xu Zhang %A Yaobin Lin %A Zihui Tan %J SCIE-indexed Journal %D 2019 %R 10.21037/jtd.2019.09.05 %X Esophagectomy with extended lymphadenectomy remains a mainstay of curative treatment for patients with localized esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The traditional open transthoracic procedure is the standard surgery for esophageal cancer (1-4). However, the video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, with less surgical trauma, blood loss, postoperative complications, and shorter hospital stay, has been gradually recognized as a more feasible surgical procedure for esophageal cancer (3,5-7). Also, the long-term oncologic outcomes of thoraco-laparoscopic minimally invasive esophagectomy (TLMIE) were found to be equivalent to standard open surgery (4,8,9). However, the TLMIE is limited by a two-dimensional view and the reduced freedom of movements, which may disable delicate dissections of the esophagus and lymph nodes, especially in salvage surgery after definitive chemoradiotherapy or surgery following neo-adjuvant therapies %U http://jtd.amegroups.com/article/view/31954/html