Endoscopic retreatment of Zenker's diverticulum using novel endoscopic scissors - The Clutch Cutter device.

Treatment of Zenker's diverticulum by flexible endoscopy consists of the myotomy of the cricopharyngeal muscle and is considered to be feasible, effective and safe. This report describes the novel use of a Clutch Cutter® device to perform flexible endoscopic retreatment of a symptomatic recurrence after previous treatment using a Needle knife in a 68 year old woman with symptoms of dysphagia for solids.

[Rectal perforation after endoscopic submucosal dissection: conservative management].

Endoscopic mucosal resection and surgery have been the treatments used for resection of early neoplastic colorectal lesions. However, since a few years ago the endoscopic submucosal dissection is a procedure accepted for the curative treatment of these lesions. Among the complications that can occur with this procedure, perforation is one of the most serious ones, requiring in most cases surgical management.

[High-grade dysplasia as a result of gastric metaplasia].

Barrett's esophagus (BE) is an acquired condition in which the normal esophageal squamous epithelium is replaced by columnar epithelium. It has been long pointed out that columnar metaplasia should be of intestinal goblet cells in order to define the BE, because intestinal metaplasia (IM) has been considered as the only conferring oncogenic risk, therefore having pre-neoplastic potential However, the definition ofBE restricted to the presence of IM has been widely discussed and currently constitutes a debated topic. We describe the case ofa patient with gastroesophageal reflux disease and high-grade dysplasia in the distal esophagus.

Gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection: from animal model to patient.

Aim: To assess whether the use of porcine models is useful for learning endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), thus contributing to its subsequent application in human patients.

Methods: This study/learning process was carried out in 3 phases: Phase I: Ex vivo animal; Phase II: In vivo animal; Phase III: Humans. One endoscopist performed 30 gastric ESDs in porcine models, and later 5 gastric ESDs in 5 patients.