Krishnamoorthy A, Griffiths EA. Endoscopic resection of oesophageal gastrointestinal stromal tumours: Promise, pitfalls and the path forward. World J Gastroenterol 2025; 31(34): 110448 [DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i34.110448]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ashwin Krishnamoorthy, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Mendelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2GW, United Kingdom. ashwin.krishnamoorthy@warwick.ac.uk
Research Domain of This Article
Surgery
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 14, 2025; 31(34): 110448 Published online Sep 14, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i34.110448
Endoscopic resection of oesophageal gastrointestinal stromal tumours: Promise, pitfalls and the path forward
Ashwin Krishnamoorthy, Ewen A Griffiths
Ashwin Krishnamoorthy, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2GW, United Kingdom
Ewen A Griffiths, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham B15 2GW, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Krishnamoorthy A and Griffiths EA conceptualized the work; Griffiths EA reviewed and edited the work; Krishnamoorthy A wrote the original draft, completed the final draft before both authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ashwin Krishnamoorthy, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Mendelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2GW, United Kingdom. ashwin.krishnamoorthy@warwick.ac.uk
Received: June 10, 2025 Revised: June 18, 2025 Accepted: August 18, 2025 Published online: September 14, 2025 Processing time: 91 Days and 3 Hours
Abstract
Oesophageal gastrointestinal stromal tumours are rare, anatomically challenging lesions with higher surgical morbidity than their gastric counterparts. Emerging endoscopic resection techniques such as endoscopic submucosal dissection and submucosal tunnelling endoscopic resection show much promise for the management of patients who are not fit for, or wish to avoid the morbidity of, major surgical resection. These techniques require careful patient selection and advanced technical skills. We build on the recent review of such techniques by Vogli et al. Current evidence is limited to small case series with heterogeneity in patient selection, tumor size, and outcomes. Notably, long-term oncological data remain sparse, and complications such as bleeding or perforation may be life-threatening in patients unfit for surgical rescue. Nonetheless, endoscopic approaches have many potential advantages to offer such as preserved quality of life and definitive management of unfit patients.
Core Tip: Greater awareness and adoption of endoscopic resection techniques will generate more evidence and data for their safety and potential oncologic durability, possibly through multicentre studies. Going forward appropriate patient and tumour selection is key, with careful counselling and consent process for patients.
