Background: Endoscopic papillectomy (EP) has been recognized as a safe and reliable treatment for tumor of the duodenal papilla. For complete resection, precise assessment of not only the intraductal extent but also the lateral margins of the tumor is mandatory before resection.
Objective: Our purpose was to prospectively assess the enhancement of the lateral margins of tumor of the duodenal papilla for the treatment of EP by comparing narrow-band imaging (NBI) and indigo carmine (IC) chromoendoscopy.
Design: Prospective study.
Setting: This procedure was performed in Tokyo Medical University Hospital.
Patients: Fourteen consecutive cases of tumors of the major duodenal papilla.
Intervention: All patients underwent EP after evaluation by NBI and IC.
Main outcome measurement: Histologic evaluation of diagnosis of NBI and IC by comparison with en bloc tissue.
Results: In all lesions, either IC or NBI were superior to conventional white-light imaging except in 1 IC case. The ability of NBI observation to emphasize the tumor margin was statistically significantly better than IC observation (P< .05). The en bloc EP was endoscopically successful in all cases, without fatal adverse events. En bloc tissue revealed 13 adenomas and 1 adenoma with focal adenocarcinoma. There was no residual adenoma in lateral margin specimens, either endoscopically or histologically.
Limitations: The lesions resected were all relatively small. This was not a blinded randomized study.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated the feasibility and a certain degree of efficacy of NBI for enhancement of the tumor margin of duodenal papilla. Further blinded randomized studies involving large duodenal papillary tumors are required.