Table 1.

Treatments for the prevention of esophageal stricture after endoscopic submucosal dissection.

Group		Mechanisms	Advantages	Disadvantages and limitations
Pharmacological treatment	Steroid	Anti-inflammatory, antifibrotic formation, antiscar formation	Effective in many small comparative clinical studies	Hard to prevent stricture in patients with circumferential esophageal mucosal defects, systematic side effects (peptic ulcers, immune suppression metabolic disturbances, and psychiatric symptoms), and delayed wound healing
	Antifibrotic drug	Inhibit the proliferation of fibrous scars	Antifibrotic effect	No randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews with sufficient evidence
Esophageal stent treatment	Esophageal self-expandable stents	Expand the esophagus	Persistently expand the esophagus, easily to be removed at any time	Adverse reactions (bleeding, chest pain, esophageal perforation, and stent migration), high recurrence after stent removal, and long-term effects were unknown
	Biodegradable stents	Expand the esophagus	Expand the esophagus, no need to remove	No randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews with sufficient evidence
Tissue engineering approaches	Extracellular matrix scaffold	Support the growth of epithelial cells, promote esophageal structure remodeling	Support tissue, enhance mucosal healing and structure remodeling	Potential safety problem, no randomized controlled trials, or systematic reviews with sufficient evidence
	Cell-based therapy	Promote reepithelialization and scarless wound healing	Reepithelialization, enhancement of mucosal healing and structure remodeling, great potential for development	Complicated technique, high cost, large-sample controlled trial, and long-term follow-up research are needed