Endoscopic mucosal resection for proximal superficial lesions: efficacy and safety study in 59 consecutive resections.

Introduction: endoscopic mucosal resection is an accepted technique for the treatment of proximal gastrointestinal tract superficial lesions.
Objectives: to evaluate the efficacy and safety of this procedure in the proximal gastrointestinal tract.
Material and Methods: forty one consecutive patients (23 males and 18 females, mean age of 61 ± 11.5 years) were included in our study. Fifty nine resections were performed in these patients in 69 sessions. Lesions treated consisted of elevated lesions with high grade dysplasia in the context of Barrett's esophagus (group A), high grade dysplasia appearing in random biopsies taken during the follow-up of Barrett's esophagus (group B) and superficial gastroduodenal lesions (group C). Snare resection after submucosal injection, band ligator-assisted or cap-assisted mucosal resection were the chosen techniques.
Results: we resected 7 elevated lesions with high grade dysplasia in the context of Barrett's esophagus, 6 complete Barrett's esophagus with high grade dysplasia in 16 sequential sessions and 46 gastroduodenal superficial lesions (10 adenomas, 9 gastric superficial carcinomas, 18 carcinoid tumours and 9 lesions of different histological nature). Resections in the two first groups were complete in 100% of the cases, and in 97.9% of the cases in group C. Complications included 2 cases of limited deferred bleeding (groups A and B) and another two cases of stenosis with little clinical relevance in Group B.
Conclusions: a) endoscopic mucosal resection is an efficient technique for the treatment of proximal gastrointestinal tract superficial lesions; b) it is a safe procedure with a low percentage of complications, which can generally be managed endoscopically; and c) in contrast with other ablative techniques, endoscopic mucosal resection offers the possibility of a pathologic analysis of the samples.