Endoscopic treatment for esophageal cancer

: Endoscopic therapy has now become the treatment of first choice of early esophageal cancer. We developed endoscopic esophageal mucosal resection (EEMR)-tube method employing a silicon rubber tube. The 4-step EEMR-tube method is our standard way to resect a wide lesion. In the 1st step, the lesion containing the deepest area is mostly resected. In the 2nd step, the residual lesion is resected, repeating a similar procedure. In the 3rd step, the surrounding residual area is resected bythe double channel method. In the 4th step, resected edge and tiny residual portions are treated by hot biopsy and argon plasma coagulation. In the patients treated by endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), local recurrence rate was 3.6% and most of these cases were treated successfully again by endoscopic maneuver.