Aspiration and coagulation to reduce risk of delayed bleeding after gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection (with video)

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a simple method named aspiration and coagulation (AC) for reducing the risk of postoperative bleeding after gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD).

Methods: Data were retrospectively reviewed and collected from the medical records and endoscopic and pathologic reports about consecutive patients who underwent ESD for early gastric cancer or precancerous lesions or gastric submucosal lesions from January 2016 to December 2021 at the Seventh Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital. Enrolled patients who underwent the AC method during ESD were included in the AC group, and the others were included in the control group. Propensity score (PS) matching (1:1 match) was used to compensate for the differences that might affect post-ESD bleeding. Massive hemorrhage and overall delayed bleeding events after gastric ESD were compared between the two groups.

Results: Propensity score matching analysis created 242 matched pairs in the study. Characteristics of the subjects such as age and use of antithrombotic drugs were all similar between the two groups after PS matching. The rate of massive hemorrhage and overall delayed bleeding was both significantly lower in the AC group than in the control (0.4% vs. 3.3% for massive hemorrhage, P = 0.037, and 1.2% vs. 5.0% for overall delayed bleeding, P = 0.032), predominantly in mucosal lesions (0.6% vs. 4.4% for massive hemorrhage, P = 0.032, and 1.2% vs. 5.6% for overall delayed bleeding, P = 0.031).

Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that the AC method effectively decreased delayed bleeding events after ESD.

Keywords: aspiration and coagulation; delayed bleeding; early gastric cancer; endoscopic submucosal dissection; massive hemorrhage.