Current endoscopic methods of radical therapy in early esophageal cancer

During the last three decades, there has been an increasing incidence of the esophageal cancer at the global level, approx. 400,000 new esophageal cancers being currently diagnosed annually. This is the eighth leading cause of cancer incidence and the sixth leading cause of cancer death overall. If we refer to the countries of Western Europe and North America, we could see an increase in the esophageal adenocarcinoma in detriment of squamous cancer. As for the Asian region, referring in particular to China and Japan, 9 out of 10 esophageal cancers are squamous cell carcinomas. Considering that the incidence of gastric cancer in Japan is very high, the endoscopic screenings performed inevitably led to an increased rate of early detection of esophageal cancer, reaching approximately 20% of all esophageal cancers detected. This has led to the possibility of developing therapeutic endoscopic techniques with radical visa that we will describe while presenting comparative data from literature. Currently, however, there are not enough data on the effectiveness of these types of therapies, compared to surgery, in order to be transformed into standard therapeutic endoscopic treatment for early esophageal cancer. However, the combined therapy, resection/ endoscopic ablation + chemoradiotherapy, appears as an alternative to be taken into account. Abbreviations EEC = esophageal early cancer, BE = Barrett’s esophagus, HGD = High-grade dysphagia, EUS = Ultra sound endoscopy, CT = Computer tomograph, UGE = Upper gastro endoscopy, PET-CT = Positron Emission Tomography, FNAB = Fine needle aspiration biopsy, EMR = Esophageal mucosal resection, ESD = Esophageal submucosal dissection, SCC = Squamous cellular cancer, PCT = Poli-chemotherapy, RT- Radio-therapy.