Endoscopic follow-up in oncological diseases of the gastrointestinal tract: The experience of the Regina Elena Cancer Institute

In oncology, follow-up refers to the medical procedures aimed to control, o ver time, both patients at risk of developing cancer, or those already subm itted to surgical treatments for neoplastic lesions. The usefulness of an e ndoscopic follow-up in oncological diseases of the gastrointestinal tract i s still being debated and, in some cases, a variety of different protocols are often employed for the same disease. At Regina Elena Cancer Institute, after a critical review of our data and l iterature, we established and followed guidelines of endoscopic follow-up f or patients both at risk and submitted to curative surgery for cancer.