Endoscopic mucosal resection versus endoscopic submucosal dissection for colorectal laterally spreading tumors: a meta-analysis.

Objective: to assess the efficacy and safety of endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) and endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) in the treatment of colorectal laterally spreading tumors (LSTs).

Methods: a systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI and WANFANG databases. The related references were selected according to certain inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Cochrane Collaboration's Revman 5.3 software was used for data analysis.

Results: a total of 12 studies were included in the analysis. The total number of lesions was 3,062 (EMR: 1,906; ESD: 1,156). The en-bloc resection rate of ESD was 95 % (1,098/1,156), which was significantly higher than that of EMR (42.8 %, 815/1,906) (OR = 0.07, 95 % CI [0.02, 0.07], p < 0.00001). The complete resection rate of ESD was 93.2 % (109/117), which was significantly higher than that of EMR as well (71.9 %, 92/128) (OR = 0.12, 95 % CI [0.05, 0.29], p < 0.00001). The bleeding rate showed no significant difference between EMR and ESD (4.2 % vs 3.5 %) (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI [0.68, 1.60], p = 0.85). The perforation rates of EMR and ESD were 1.8 % and 2.4 %, respectively, which displayed a significant difference (OR = 0.56, 95 % CI [0.32, 0.97], p = 0.04). Nevertheless, the recurrence rate of EMR was significantly higher than that of ESD (15.9 % vs 0.5 %) (OR = 23.06, 95 % CI [11.11, 47.85], p < 0.00001).

Conclusions: endoscopic resection of LSTs is safe and effective. As compared with EMR, ESD has higher en-bloc and complete resection rates but a lower recurrence rate. Therefore, ESD is highly recommended for the treatment of LSTs.