Published online Jul 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i19.6428
Peer-review started: October 27, 2021
First decision: March 11, 2022
Revised: March 26, 2022
Accepted: April 21, 2022
Article in press: April 21, 2022
Published online: July 6, 2022
Processing time: 239 Days and 19.9 Hours
Two of the most important disadvantages of endoscopic treatment are the length of the procedure time and the risk of aspiration. Existing endoscopic devices are inadequate for large gastric phytobezars; therefore, our team invented a hand-made tool to solve those problems.
Large gastric persimmon stones are generally resistant to standard endoscopic treatments. As such, a novel, better solution is needed.
The study objective was to explore the clinical efficacy of self-made wire loop snares in treating giant gastric persimmon stones.
The clinical data of 38 patients with gastroliths and who were treated by endoscopic lithotripsy at Taihe Hospital were evaluated retrospectively. The study included an observation group of 23 patients treated with self-made wire loop snares and a control group of 15 patients treated with traditional foreign body forceps, snares, injection needles, and other tools. The rates of successful stone removal, the time needed to perform the treatment, and the length of the hospital stay, and medical costs were compared.
The self-made guidewire loop snares significantly shortened the lithotripsy time under gastroscopy, reduced equipment-associated damage, shortened hospital stay, and saved medical costs.
We reported our experience using self-made guidewire loop snares for the endoscopic treatment of large gastric phytobezoars. The two main advantages of our snare are that the sheath and guidewire can be readily available in almost every endoscopy unit and the procedure can be performed with a standard gastroscope. Furthermore, the guidewire can be easily guided through the sheath to capture the bezoar, resulting in a significantly shorter procedure time than needed with other methods.
The self-made snares successfully grasped large-sized gastric bezoars and fragmented them into small pieces in all patients. A prospective randomized controlled study and a larger patient sample is needed to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the self-made wire loop snare.