Feeding delay after esophageal surgery studied for muscle preservation

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria: * Candidates for surgical resection with a curative intent, admitted to our Department. * Able to understand the study information in Dutch or French and tasks related to the study measurements provided by the researchers. * Able to consent. * Patients with cancer of the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ), distal, mid- and proximal thoracic esophagus. * Patients with early as well as advanced clinical stage esophageal cancer: from clinical stages cT1N0 over cT2+ N+ or cT3 Nx after neo-adjuvant therapy or at the time of staging as a candidate for primary surgery. * Histology preop: Squamous or adenocarcinoma. * Patients must undergo at least two-field lymphadenectomy; three-field lymphadenectomy if deemed necessary by the clinical team is not a contraindication for inclusion. * All access: (robotic assisted) minimal invasive (thoracoscopy \& laparoscopy) approach, left thoraco-abdominal incision, hybrid esophageal resection or R thoracotomy + laparotomy * Partial or subtotal esophagectomy. * Reconstruction by gastric conduit. * All anastomoses (intrathoracic or cervical). * Women of child bearing age with esophageal cancer can be included. Exclusion Criteria: * Patients in a definitive chemoradiation protocol, or undergoing rescue resection following definitive chemoradiotherapy. * Patients expected to die within 12 hours (=moribund patients). * Patients transferred from another institute after esophageal resection with an established nutritional therapy. * Patients with a cT4b tumor after neo-adjuvant therapy. * Patients who are at the time of surgery deemed unresectable or found to be unresectable during surgery. * Patients with a R2-resection. * Patients with metastasis at the time of clinical staging. * Patients undergoing transhiatal resection of the esophagus. * Patients undergoing total gastrectomy * Patients undergoing an esophageal resection or esophageal bypass as palliative treatment * Patients with tumors in the cervical esophagus with a distance less than 3cm from the cricopharyngeal sphincter. * Patients with pharyngeal cancer undergoing (laryngo-)pharyngectomy with gastric pull-up * Need for colonic or jejunal interposition * Patients with a second synchronous malignancy * Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (as this might interfere with caloric uptake in the small bowel) * Patients with contra-indications for enteral nutrition. * Patients already participating in a study with a nutritional intervention.