[Interventions in gastroenterology and hepatology: indications and results]

Interventional therapy and above all the endoscopic interventions have gained importance in the last years. There are a lot of interventional procedures with curative or palliative intention, which value have to be compared with surgical therapy as the therapeutical gold standard. Today the endoscopic hemostasis for ulcer or variceal bleeding are the therapy of choice with very good results. Thus the need for surgery is low. The treatment of benign esophageal stenosis is a domain of the endoscopic therapy. Dilatation with bougies or balloon dilatation get comparable results. In patients with achalasia age and comorbidity of the patients are of great importance for the choice of therapy. In young patients the botulinum toxin injection should be avoided because of a very low long-term efficiency and because surgery become more difficult after botulinum toxin injection. As colorectal cancer is a frequent tumor endoscopic polypectomy and mucosectomy are very important endoscopic procedures, because there is a possibility of cancer prevention and when risk factors are be considered a curative therapy of early colorectal cancer is possible.