Degree of healing and healing-associated factors of endoscopic submucosal dissection-induced ulcers after pantoprazole therapy for 4 weeks.

BACKGROUND: There is no consensus regarding the degree of healing of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD)-induced ulcers and the optimal duration of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) treatment.

AIM: To evaluate the degree of healing and the factors associated with healing of ESD-induced ulcers after PPI therapy for 4 weeks.

METHODS: Fifty-six patients who underwent complete ESD for adenoma or early gastric cancer were enrolled. All patients underwent follow-up endoscopy to evaluate the degree of ulcer healing after pantoprazole therapy (40 mg per day) for 4 weeks. We evaluated change in size of ESD-induced ulcers between baseline and 4 weeks, and correlated relevant factors with degree of healing of small and large ulcers.

RESULTS: At follow-up, 28 (50%) patients had large ulcers (area > 10 mm(2)). Ulcer size at 4 weeks was closely correlated with initial ulcer size (P < 0.001) and abruptly increased when initial ulcer size was larger than 4 cm. Comorbidity, procedure time, and initial specimen size were significantly associated with healing rate, but multivariate analysis showed that initial ulcer size was the only significant parameter (P < 0.015).

CONCLUSIONS: Healing degree of ESD-induced ulcers at 4 weeks is dependent on initial ulcer size, indicating that duration of treatment with PPI should be dependent on initial ulcer size.