Self-expanding metal stents in palliative malignant oesophageal dysplasia

Despite modern developments in both diagnostic and treatment methods, oesophageal cancer remains the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, with the reported 5-year survival rate being less than ten percent (1). Patients usually present late in the course of the disease, with inoperable cancer at the time of diagnosis, due to either local invasion, presence of metastatic disease or both (2,3). The delay in diagnosis is primarily accounted by the late development of symptoms attributed to the distensible properties of the gastrointestinal tract. Patients experience few symptoms until advanced disease or severe luminal narrowing has occurred (4,5). In addition, most oesophageal cancers are detected in elderly patients with severe underlying comorbidities (6,7) and a major cause of morbidity in patients with oesophageal and gastric cardia malignancy remains to be dysphagia along with under nutrition (8,9)