 
The patients, who have suffered a surgical intervention by an experienced surgeon, have a rate of mortality on long term with 22% inferior to those who have been treated by surgeons with a lower volume of surgical interventions in their list of achievements.
According to which criteria should one chose his/her doctor or surgeon in case of a relatively severe disease? The experience is an important factor of the doctor´s quality. A new proof has been given by Swedish researchers who have substantiated that a patient suffering of oesophagus cancer benefits from a longer survival on long term if he/she has been operated on by an experienced surgeon, who has the experience of such difficult interventions, in comparison with a novice or a doctor not specialized in this pathology. As one could have suspected, they have substantiated it in a masterly manner. The researchers at the Institut Karolinska, who have published their result on the 7th of January in The Journal of Clinical Oncology , estimate that the surgery of the oesophagus cancer should be concentrated in the hands of licensed surgeons.
The surgical removal is the basic treatment of the esophagus cancer. This is a difficult intervention, but it allows to a certain number of patients to be healed and to others to have a survival of more than 5 years. The Swedish study tilted on 1335 operated patients between 1987 and 2005 in Sweden, who have benefited from a regular supervision until 2011. The authors analyzed the global surgical volume of the hospitals where each patient has been operated on, the number of this kind of interventions realized each year by the surgeon being in charge of the patient and his/her experience accumulated in the respective field since the end of the academic course. They have then analyzed the survival period of the patients according to the surgeon´s experience.
The results are quite spectacular, as the patients operated on by physicians having a high cumulated surgical volume  present a less than 22% long term mortality risk in comparison with the surgeons having a low surgical volume in their list of achievements in this kind of pathology. However, the hospital´s surgical volume has no effect on the long term survival. It is clear for the researchers having led this evaluation, that this type of surgery must be centralized to some surgeons having a great experience in these important and difficult interventions.
The question of the surgeon´s training exceeds the framework of the oesophagus cancer. A study in France has shown, for example, that concerning the removal of the prostate for cancer reason, the risk of death during the surgical intervention is multiplied by 3,5 when the surgeon makes less than 50 removals per year, in comparison with the surgeon who makes more than 100.
Source of the article here
