Endoscopic submucosal dissection: established, or still needs improving?

摘要

The title of this editorial is a question, and I would like to begin early with an apparent datum: nothing is established. Flexible endoscopy has evolved at an amazing pace over the past 50 years, and, in the last few years, we have assisted in a dramatic expansion of the endoscopic potentiality to remove superficial neoplastic lesions of the GI tract, regardless of their size and location. The evolution of the original technique of EMRto submucosal dissection has dramatically changed the scenario in which endoscopists and patients will be moving in the near future. And we are in a very early phase of development of this process. In the typical phase in which nothing is rigidly fixed, most of the prb-cesses are to be defined, and improved technology may quickly change our capacity to cure patients with early GI cancers