Rasmussen SR, et al. - In a retrospective observational study, researchers investigated how postoperative complications influenced survival following open esophageal resection in a western population with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). They examined data on pre- and perioperative clinical information, mortality and complications for 133 patients consecutively included in this study. They found that study participants who had surgical resection for SCC experienced a more frequent occurrence of complications but had an improved 5-year survival, as compared to previous studies with mixed populations. Data also showed that the presence of postoperative complications significantly attenuated the long-term survival with 42%.