Objective  This study aimed to summarize the diagnosis and treatment of uncommon complications in esophageal and cardiac cancer operations as well as obtain lessons from the failure.

  Methods  The etiology, clinical diagnosis, treatment, prevention measures, and factors that contribute to the failure of the uncommon complications were analyzed retrospectively.

  Results  Results showed ten cured cases and eight death cases (except for the reported eight cases).

  Conclusion  The following conclusions were obtained. 1) The complications described in this paper were rare, but they sometimes occur clinically. If wrong treatment was taken, serious consequences would be expected. 2) Once a jet-like bleeding of aortic esophagus avulsion injury occurs, the surgeon must be calm and take proper treatment to successfully patch up the wounds. 3) The right thoracic approach is a new approach to prevent the injury of azygos vein. 4) Patients with anastomotic stoma fistula easily cause a delay in diagnosis if the leakage was wrapped in the inferior phrenic. 5) Taking preventive measures is the key method for the anastomotic aortoesophageal fistula. 6) Occurrence of pulmonary embolism after operation should be monitored. 7) Thoracic gastric mediastinal hernia would cause serious consequences if treatment was not taken at a proper time.