Laparoscopic endoscopic cooperative surgery.

Laparoscopic and endoscopic cooperative surgery (LECS) is a newly developed concept for tumor dissection of the gastrointestinal tract that was first investigated for local resection of gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). The first reported version of LECS for GIST has been named 'classical LECS' to distinguish it from other modified LECS procedures, such as inverted LECS, a combination of laparoscopic and endoscopic approaches to neoplasia with a non-exposure technique (CLEAN-NET), and non-exposed endoscopic wall-inversion surgery (NEWS). These modified LECS procedures were developed for dissection of malignant tumors which may seed tumor cells into the abdominal cavity. While these LECS-related procedures might prevent tumor seeding, their application is limited by several factors, such as tumor size, location and technical difficulty. Currently, classical LECS is a safe and useful procedure for gastric submucosal tumors without mucosal defects, independent of tumor location, such as proximity to the esophagogastric junction or pyloric ring. For future applications of LECS-related procedures for other malignant diseases with mucosal lesions such as GIST with mucosal defects and gastric cancer, some improvements in the techniques are needed.