Minimally invasive debulking surgery for small mesenchymal tumors

  There are many patients who find a smooth mucosal bulge in the esophagus and gastric wall during gastroscopy, often ending up with a diagnosis of submucosal tumors, including mesenchymal tumors, smooth muscle tumors, and lipomas, under ultrasound endoscopy. Although the possibility of malignancy is minimal, there is still a risk of obstruction, bleeding, and malignancy if small-sized tumors are allowed to grow.  Recently, we have successfully completed several cases of endoscopic ligation and debridement of small-sized mesenchymal tumors in the gastrointestinal tract, and achieved the effect of eradicating the tumor while shortening the operation time and reducing intraoperative bleeding. Mesenchymal tumor is the most common mesenchymal-derived tumor of the gastrointestinal tract, which originates from Cajal mesenchymal cells of the gastrointestinal tract and is mostly located in the intrinsic muscular layer of the gastric wall, close to the plasma membrane layer, and its incidence is increasing year by year. In the past, the conventional treatment for large mesenchymal tumors (>3cm) in the gastrointestinal tract was surgical resection, but in recent years, with the development of minimally invasive clinical technology, endoscopic treatment methods for early gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors have been progressing, mainly including endoscopic ligation therapy and endoscopic submucosal dissection.  Endoscopic ligation is suitable for tumors ≤2 cm in diameter, i.e. small volume mesenchymal tumors, which is less traumatic, faster recovery and less expensive, but the shortcoming is that the complete tumor body cannot be obtained for pathological examination; while endoscopic submucosal dissection is suitable for mesenchymal tumors over 2 cm in volume, which is relatively large in creation and easy to cause perforation and bleeding. The procedures were all successfully completed within 30 minutes, most of them did not require anesthesia, and finally the nature and risk of the tumor could be evaluated by the complete pathological specimen. This procedure saves medical supplies, reduces medical costs, and is minimally invasive, fully demonstrating the superiority of minimally invasive endoscopic treatment.