Endoscopic Resection of Early Gastric Cancer

Endoscopic resection has become accepted as a standard treatment in selected patients with early gastric cancer (EGC) with negligible risk of lymph node metastasis. Endoscopic resection preserves the stomach and therefore improves quality of life compared with surgery. And it allows accurate histological staging of the tumor, which is critical in deciding whether additional treatment is necessary. The endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) method has been widely used with higher en bloc resection and complete resection rates than conventional endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) with acceptable complication rates. Long-term clinical outcomes of these techniques are promising in terms of disease-free and overall survival. Recently, the expanded indication of endoscopic resection for early gastric cancer has been proposed because of technical advances of ESD. Long-term outcome data of the expanded indication are needed for the clinical application of the expanded criteria of ESD. (Korean J Med 2011;81:40-46)