Long-term outcomes after endoscopic treatment of gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumor

Endoscopic resection of gastric subepithelial tumors (SETs) has several advantages over biopsy techniques, such as superior diagnostic yield and definite diagnosis. Removal of gastric SETs and histopathologic confirmation should be considered whenever gastric SETs are highly suspected to have malignant potential such as gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) or neuroendocrine tumor. According to our clinical experience, we suggest that endoscopic resection of gastric SETs is feasible for GISTs less than 3.0 cm without positive endoscopic ultrasonography findings or for hypoechoic SETs less than 3.0 cm. However, serious complications such as macroperforation may occur during endoscopic resection, and this procedure is highly dependent on endoscopists’ skills. We recently reported the long-term clinical outcomes of endoscopic resection of gastric GIST, which showed a relatively low recurrence rate (2.2%) during long-term follow-up (46.0±28.5 months) despite the low R0 resection rate (25.0%). We suggest that endoscopic surveillance might be possible without additional surgical resection in completely resected GISTs without residual tumor confirmed to be lower risk, even if they show an R1 resection margin.