Assignment and randomization
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All patients will be screened for eligibility considering the inclusion criteria on the day of admission (standard: the day before the surgery). Screened and eligible patients will be included in the trial after obtaining written informed consent. After obtaining written informed consent, randomization will be performed intraoperatively after completion of the oesophagogastrostomy and verification of the exclusion criteria. To achieve comparable intervention groups for known and unknown risk factors, randomization will be performed using block randomization with variable block length. Randomization lists are stratified by trial sites and will be centrally generated by nQuery by the Coordination Centre for Clinical Trials. A patient will be randomized by authorized trial personnel using the electronic REDCaP® system.