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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jan 27, 2016; 8(1): 52-64
Published online Jan 27, 2016. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v8.i1.52
Esophageal surgery in minimally invasive era
Lapo Bencini, Luca Moraldi, Ilenia Bartolini, Andrea Coratti
Lapo Bencini, Luca Moraldi, Ilenia Bartolini, Andrea Coratti, Division of Oncologic Surgery and Robotics, Department of Oncology, Careggi University Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Careggi, 50134 Florence, Italy
Author contributions: All the authors contributed equally to this work; Bencini L conceived the idea and designed the research; Moraldi L, Bartolini I and Coratti A performed the research and contributed to the final draft of the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
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: Lapo Bencini, MD, PhD, Division of Oncologic Surgery and Robotics, Department of Oncology, Careggi University Hospital, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Careggi, Largo Brambilla 3, 50134 Florence, Italy. lapbenc@tin.it
Telephone: +39-55-7947404 Fax: +39-55-7947451
Received: April 24, 2015
Peer-review started: April 26, 2015
First decision: September 8, 2015
Revised: November 28, 2015
Accepted: December 4, 2015
Article in press: December 8, 2015
Published online: January 27, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Minimally invasive surgery for esophageal diseases is very attractive for reducing potentially serious complications that can occur after conventional surgery. However, if the oncologic long-term results remain the cornerstone of any procedure to treat malignancies, determining the outcomes of surgery for benign diseases requires a deep analysis of published evidence and a comparison with alternative pharmaceutical or endoscopic treatments.