Submucosal or subepithelial tumors
What are submucosal or subepithelial tumors?
Cancer is a proliferation of abnormal cells that invade surrounding tissues and in advanced stages it spreads in the form of metastases to distant organs.
Submucosal tumors originate in the inner layers of the digestive tract and are diagnosed by radiological tests or by endoscopy, visualizing bulges in the lumen of the digestive tract.
There are many different types of submucosal tumors, some of which have the potential to become malignant lesions.
What are the symptoms?
These tumors do not produce symptoms in early stages. In late phases they produce difficulties in swallowing, abdominal pain, tiredness, loss of weight or appetite.
How is it diagnosed?
Most of the time they are diagnosed by chance when performing endoscopy or CT
Once they have been diagnosed, an echoendoscopy should be performed to better understand their characteristics, see in which layer of the digestive tract they are found, determine their size and assess whether there are malignant characteristics.
If you are looking for a second opinion about your endoscopic treatment or have been offered a surgical solution, contact us.
How is it treated?
In localized tumors that are generally less than 5cm in size, a good treatment option is endoscopic treatment using the STER technique or also called POET (“Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection”).
Tunneling the layers of the digestive tube, it is possible to access it and remove it in an entire block. In this way, more aggressive surgical interventions are avoided and recovery is very fast.
The Endos Advanced team introduced the technique in our country, and has obtained excellent results in this type of tumor.