Gastric submucosal neoplasms: new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

Submucosal neoplasms can be found in the esophagus and stomach during radiologic or endoscopic examination; histological diagnosis, however, is not significant in many cases because sampling is difficult. Endoscopic biopsies usually do not allow to obtain tissue from the submucosal layer nor other techniques prove to be reliable enough. 23 patients, aged between 21 and 76 were studied over a period of 5 years; in 1 male large gastric folds were observed. Of the 22 patients affected by benign submucosal neoplasms, 2 underwent surgical operation; no significant samples were obtained in any of the 11 cases in which biopsy forceps had been used. In the remaining patients an electrosurgical snare for polypectomy was used; this technique proved to be successful in 77.8% of cases. It is often shown to be also a therapeutic method when polypoid neoplasms are found.