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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2016; 22(3): 1172-1178
Published online Jan 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i3.1172
Important considerations when contemplating endoscopic resection of undifferentiated-type early gastric cancer
Jie-Hyun Kim
Jie-Hyun Kim, Department of Internal Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 135-720, South Korea
Author contributions: Kim JH analyzed the literature and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author has no conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jie-Hyun Kim, MD, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 211 Eonjuro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-720, South Korea. otilia94@yuhs.ac
Telephone: +82-2-20193505 Fax: +82-2-34633882
Received: June 3, 2015
Peer-review started: June 5, 2015
First decision: August 31, 2015
Revised: September 11, 2015
Accepted: October 17, 2015
Article in press: October 20, 2015
Published online: January 21, 2016
Processing time: 225 Days and 21.7 Hours
Abstract

Endoscopic resection (ER) of undifferentiated-type early gastric cancer (UD-EGC) has a lower curative resection (CR) rate than does ER of differentiated-type EGC (D-EGC). However, a low CR rate does not mean that it is unreasonable to schedule ER of UD-EGC. If ER is in fact curative, the long-term outcomes including survival rate are excellent. Quality of life is good because maximal stomach preservation is possible. However, UD-EGC and D-EGC differ histologically. Thus, when ER is contemplated to treat UD-EGC, a careful approach employing strict criteria is essential because the biology of UD-EGC and D-EGC differ.

Keywords: Early gastric cancer; Undifferentiated; Endoscopic resection; Lymph node metastasis

Core tip: If endoscopic resection (ER) of undifferentiated-type early gastric cancer (UD-EGC) is in fact curative, the long-term outcomes are excellent. However, when ER is contemplated to treat UD-EGC, a careful approach employing strict criteria is essential because the biology of UD-EGC and differentiated-type EGC (D-EGC) differ. In this review, we will discuss the important points to perform ER in UD-EGC according to the data known so far.