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Background and study aims Salvage therapy for esophageal cancer following chemo-radiation therapy (CRT) has not been established. We aimed to evaluate endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) as a salvage therapy based on histopathological features of lesions. Patients and methods We compared 10 lesions in eight patients with local residual, recurrent, or metachronous esophageal squamous cell carcinoma treated by ESD after CRT (CRT group) and 59 lesions treated by ESD without CRT (non-CRT group) during the same period. Results The en bloc resection rate was 100 % while the complete resection rate was 80.0 % in the lesions after CRT, indicating no difference between the CRT and non-CRT groups. Pathological examination showed that fibrosis was more intense in the lamina propria mucosa, muscularis mucosa, and submucosa. The muscularis mucosa was thicker in both non-tumor and tumor sites in the CRT group compared to the non-CRT group. However, severe submucosal fibrosis was observed only in one lesion in the CRT group. The maximum diameter of the submucosal artery was significantly larger in the CRT group (P Conclusions Compared to the non-CRT group, the lesions in the CRT group were accompanied by fibrosis while the muscularis mucosa were thicker; however, severe fibrosis of the submucosa was rare. It is important to dissect the muscularis mucosa appropriately during ESD, which makes successful dissection of the submucosa possible. Attention should be paid to bleeding from large arteries.

Background and aim Follistatin (FST) is a glycoprotein expressed in most organs, which interacts with activins or other members of the transforming growth factor beta family. Recently, several reports have shown that FST regulates a variety of processes during tumor progression. Here, serum FST in patients with liver diseases was measured, and its clinical utility as a biomarker was assessed. Methods Serum was collected from 162 patients (91 hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC], 43 liver cirrhosis, and 28 chronic hepatitis) as well as from 16 healthy volunteers. FST was quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and levels were compared with clinical parameters including survival of the HCC patients. Results Median serum FST levels in HCC, liver cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, and healthy volunteers were 1168, 1606, 1324, and 1661 pg/mL, respectively, not significantly different. In HCC patients, higher serum FST was associated with greater age, hepatitis C virus antibody-negativity, large tumor size, g-glutamyl transpeptidase, des-gamma carboxyprothrombin and presence of portal vein tumor thrombus. Survival of HCC patients with high FST levels was significantly shorter than for those with low levels (P = 0.004). Multivariate analysis revealed that in addition to large tumor size and presence of portal vein thrombus, high FST levels were independently correlated with poor prognosis (hazard ratio = 2.41, 95% confidence interval = 1.16-5.00, P = 0.02). Conclusions Serum FST levels are significantly associated with HCC prognosis and could represent a predictive biomarker in this disease.