Clinical outcomes and risk factors for perforation in gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection: A prospective pilot study

AIM: To evaluate clinical outcomes and risk factors for endoscopic perforation during endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) in a prospective study. METHODS: We investigated the clinical outcomes and risk factors for the development of perforation in 98 consecutive gastric neoplasms undergoing ESD regarding. Demographic and clinical parameters including patient-, tumor-, and treatment-related factors, clinical parameters, and duration of hospital stay were analyzed for risk factors for perforation. In subgroup analysis, we also compared the clinical outcomes between perforation and "silent" free air without endoscopically visible perforation detected only by computed tomography.RESULTS: Perforation was identified in 8.2% of patients. All patients were managed conservatively by the administration of antibiotics. The mean procedure time was significantly longer in patients with endoscopic perforation than in those without. According to the receiver-operating characteristic analysis, the resulting cutoff value of the procedure time for perforation was 115 min (87.5% sensitivity, 56.7% specificity). Prolonged procedure time (≥ 115 min) was associated with an increased risk of perforation (odds ratio 9.15; 95%CI: 1.08-77.54; P = 0.04). Following ESD, body temperature and C-reactive protein level were significantly higher in patients with perforation than in those without (P = 0.02), whereas there was no difference between these patient groups on the starting day of oral intake or of hospitalization. In subgroup analysis, the post-ESD clinical course was not different between endoscopic perforation and silent free air. CONCLUSION: Only prolonged procedure time (≥ 115 min) was significantly associated with perforation. The clinical outcomes of perforation are favorable and are comparable to those of patients with or without silent free air.

Diagnosis of small intramucosal signet ring cell carcinoma of the stomach by non-magnifying narrow-band imaging: A pilot study

AIM: To examine the efficacy of non-magnifying narrow-band imaging(NM-NBI) imaging for small signet ring cell carcinoma(SRC).METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 14 consecutive small intramucosal SRCs that had been treated with endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD) and 14 randomly selected whitish gastric ulcer scars(control). The strength and shape of the SRCs and whitish scars by NM-NBI and white-light imaging(WLI) were assessed with Image J(NIH, Bethesda).RESULTS: NM-NBI findings of SRC showed a clearly isolated whitish area amid the brown color of the surrounding normal mucosa. The NBI index, which indicates the potency of NBI for visualizing SRC, was significantly higher than the WLI index(P = 0.001), indicating SRC was more clearly identified by NM-NBI. Although the NBI index was not significantly different between SRCs and controls, the circle(C)-index, as an index of circularity of tumor shape, was significantly higher in SRCs(P = 0.001). According to the receiveroperating characteristic analysis, the resulting cut-off value of the circularity index(C-index) for SRC was 0.60(85.7% sensitivity, 85.7% specificity). Thus a lesion with a C-index ≥ 0.6 was significantly more likely to be an SRC than a gastric ulcer scar(OR = 36.0; 95%CI: 4.33-299.09; P = 0.0009).CONCLUSION: Small isolated whitish round area by NM-NBI endoscopy is a useful finding of SRCs which is the indication for ESD.