Upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopy [Endoscopia digestiva. Tratto digestivo superiore e inferiore]

Recent-years technological innovation has achieved two important objectives: 1) to develop advanced diagnostic tools able to determine with a fair degree of accuracy the nature of a lesion by means of the simple endoscopic observation; 2) to improve the therapeutic approach to lesions, by extending the least-invasive endoscopic treatment also to lesions that in the past were referred to surgery. Advanced diagnostic methodologies have been achieved thanks to the introduction of high definition endoscopes and virtual chromo-endoscopy. Therapeutic innovation is represented by endoscopic sub-mucosal dissection (ESD) that enables the "en bloc" resection of the lesions, thus ensuring a more accurate histological evaluation of their level of infiltration and of the radicality of the resection. These diagnostic and therapeutic methodologies have been applied intensively in Barrett's esophagus, in the early gastric cancer and in the neoplastic lesions of colon-rectum. Concerning the screening of colon-rectum cancer, recent-years literature concentrated on defining the minimal necessary requirements to perform an effective and safe colonoscopy, the so-called "quality endoscopy", for which reference indicators and standards have been set.