Endoscopic therapy for early gastric cancer: Standard techniques and recent advances in ESD

The technique of endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD)is now a well-known endoscopic therapy for early gastric cancer.ESD was introduced to resect large specimens of early gastric cancer in a single piece.ESD can provide precision of histologic diagnosis and can also reduce the recurrence rate.However,the drawback of ESD is its technical difficulty,and,consequently,it is associated with a high rate of complications,the need for advanced endoscopic techniques,and a lengthy procedure time.Various advances in the devices and techniques used for ESD have contributed to overcoming these drawbacks.