Gastroenterological surgery in Japan: The past, the present and the future

Abstract

In the last two centuries, there has been remarkable progress in the field of gastroenterological surgery, including the curative resection of cancers, replacement of failed organs through transplantation, increased safety of undergoing major surgeries and decreased operative morbidity through developments in minimal access surgery. Japan has very much been at the forefront of these advances, as is evident from the present review, from advancing the surgical management of gastric cancer to the pioneering work in live‐donor transplantation. This review also highlights many instances where surgical management of the same pathologies has evolved differently between Japan and the West. It is encouraging that many procedures established in Japan are eventually taken up by the West, often after rigorous assessment affirming the quality and applicability of such techniques. In Japan, many of the crucial issues in gastroenterological surgery are increasingly addressed through large multi‐institutional prospective control trials, ensuring that Japanese surgeons continue to contribute to the advances in gastroenterological surgery.

Surgical outcome of extended liver resections for colorectal liver metastasis compared with standard liver resections

“…Recently, surgical techniques have been developed (12,13), and recent advances in combination chemotherapy have improved patients' survival. To our knowledge, few previous reports have studied short and long-term outcomes of patients who received a hepatectomy combined with resection of an adjacent organ for treating colorectal liver metastasis.…”

Endoscopy‐assisted laparoscopic submucosal dissection for a duodenal epithelial tumor

“…To overcome the duodenum’s anatomical difficulties, various hybrid approaches, which are generically referred to as laparoscopic‐endoscopic cooperative surgery, have been employed; reported procedures include endoscopy‐assisted laparoscopic wedge resection, laparoscopy‐assisted endoscopic resection, and laparoscopy‐assisted endoscopic full‐thickness resection . The indications for almost all of these procedures are limited to tumors located opposite the papilla.…”

A rare case of pelvic bronchogenic cyst treated by laparoscopic surgery

“…Laparoscopic LAR for rectal cancer is an established procedure . TME is one technique used in LAR, and it can be safely performed with laparoscopic surgery . In the preoperative imaging examination in this case, the cyst was located between the fascia propria recti and the sacrum at the level of the second sacral vertebra.…”