Gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection: can we trust the initial forceps biopsy?

This article, published in the journal Endoscopy, examines the factors associated with changes in pathological results in gastric endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) specimens. The study included 215 patients who underwent gastric ESD after an initial esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) with a diagnosis of a gastric lesion. The results showed that there was a 34.9% diagnostic discrepancy rate between the initial forceps biopsy and the ESD specimen histologic results. Patients with larger or ulcerated lesions were more likely to have an upstaging ESD pathological result, while younger age and active smoking were associated with a downstaging ESD pathological result. [Extracted from the article]