Endoscopic full thickness resection for gastric tumors originating from muscularis propria

To do systematic review of current literature for endoscopic full thickness resection (EFTR) technique for gastric tumors originating from muscularis propria.

An extensive English literature search was done till December 2015; using PubMed and Google scholar to identify the peer reviewed original and review articles using keywords-EFTR, gastric tumor, muscularis propria. Human only studies were included. The references of pertinent studies were manually searched to identify additional relevant studies. The indications, procedural details, success rates, clinical outcomes, complications and limitations were considered. For the purpose of review, data from individual studies was combined to calculate mean. No other statistical test was applied.

A total of 9 original articles were identified. Four articles were from same institute and the time frames of these studies were overlapping. To avoid duplication of data, only the study with patients over the longest time interval was included and other three were excluded. In total six studies were included in the final review. In our systematic review, the mean success rate for EFTR of gastric tumors originating from muscularis propria was 96.8%. The mean procedure time varied from a minimum of 37 min to a maximum of 105 min. There was no reported mortality from the technique itself. The most common histological diagnosis was gastrointestinal stromal tumors and leiomyoma. Gastric wall defect closure by either metallic clips or over the scope clip (OTSC) had similar outcomes although experience with OTSC was limited to smaller lesions (< 3 cm).

EFTR is a minimally invasive technique to resect gastric submucosal tumors originating from muscularis propria with a high success rate and low complication rate.