Laparoscopic and Endoscopic Cooperative Surgery for Gastric Lipoma

Abstract

Laparoscopic and endoscopic cooperative surgery (LECS) is a procedure that combines laparoscopic gastric resection with endoscopic submucosal dissection to remove gastrointestinal tract tumors with minimal surgical resection margins. LECS was first investigated for the local resection of gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), and the first reported version of LECS for GIST has been named “classical LECS”. The advantage of LECS is the preservation of the stomach wall, supplying vessels and nerves. This helps save gastric motility and the patient’s postoperative quality of life. Currently, classical LECS is a safe and useful procedure for gastric submucosal tumors (SMTs). In this case, we present a 17-year old female patient, who was presented to our department with discomfort and dull pain in the epigastrium. A gastroscopy examination revealed a large SMT ~7.0-8.0 cm in size in the corpus of the stomach. On computer tomography scan, this lesion was assessed as a lipoma. Considering the size of the lesion, the “classical” LECS procedure was chosen as a treatment modality that allowed to preserve the integrity of the stomach and the quality of the postoperative life of a young girl.