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Abstract Background Esophageal leiomyoma, also called Esophageal Smooth Muscle Tumor (SMT), is one of the most common benign tumors of the esophagus. Surgical treatment is the most widely used method, including thoracic surgery such as thoracotomy, and VATS, and endoscopic surgery such as ESD and STER. We aimed to conduct a retrospective analysis of all esophageal leiomyoma surgeries in our center to assist decision-making in minimally invasive surgery for leiomyomas. Methods From January 2015 to September 2023 patients with pathologically diagnosed esophageal leiomyoma at our hospital were retrospectively enrolled. Those who had any pathological malignant component or lack of detailed clinical information were excluded. At the same time, a 1:1 propensity matching analysis was conducted for thoracoscopy and endoscopic surgery. The matching factors included age, gender, tumor location, and size and the caliper was set as 0.2. Results Finally, 1376 patients were included, of whom 153 underwent thoracic surgery and 1223 underwent endoscopic treatment. Endoscopic surgeries were mainly composed of ESD (54.5%) and STER (45.5%), with respective proportions, of which 2 cases used thoracoscopic-assisted endoscopic resection. In the surgical group, 131 patients, accounting for 85.6%, underwent thoracoscopic surgery, of which 65 patients (42.5%) used endoscopic-assisted examination during the operation. In terms of operation time, endoscopic resection was shorter than surgical surgery (44.9 ±39.7 versus 109.4 ± 67.9 min, p0.001). Similarly, for the postoperative hospitalization days, endoscopic resection was shorter than surgical surgery (2.0 1.0, 3.0 versus 5.0 3.0, 6.0 days, p0.001), we also found that the maximum diameter of surgical resection specimens was significantly larger than that of endoscopic surgery (1.3 0.8, 2.5 versus 5.0 3.5, 7.0 cm, p 0.001). After PSM, the operation duration (p=0.031) and hospital stay (p0.001) were still statistically different between the surgical treatment group and the endoscopic group. Conclusion Most esophageal leiomyomas can be resected endoscopically, which can shorten the operation duration and hospital stay compared with thoracic surgery. When the maximum diameter of the tumor is too large or near important organs, thoracic surgery should be the first choice. In order to prevent possible esophageal mucosal damage, thoracoscopic surgery combined with intraoperative endoscopy examination is a safe and effective surgical treatment method.
Zhang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.