Endoscopic resection of early oesophageal cancer

Abstract

These alarming data are the reason why local treatment methods such as photodynamic therapy (PDT), argon plasma coagulation (APC), electrocoagulation and ER have been introduced and investigated in several studies on early oesophageal neoplasia. In contrast to ablative treatment methods such as PDT, ER allows histological assessment of the resected specimen in order to assess the depth of infiltration of the tumour and freedom from neoplasia at the lateral and (more importantly) basal margins, imitating the surgical situation.5 These significant advantages of ER are the main reason why ER should be preferred to ablative treatment methods, even PDT, whenever possible, especially bearing in mind the low accuracy of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) regarding local tumour staging.6^–11 Arguments in favour of ER are listed in table 1.