A case of endoscopic submucosal dissection for neuroendocrine carcinoma of the esophagus with invasion to the muscularis mucosae.

Neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) of the esophagus at early-stage is very rare due to its rapidly progression. Here, we reported a case of esophageal NEC at early stage treated with endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). A 63-year-old man underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and a lesion was detected in the thoracic esophagus. The preoperative diagnosis was squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) based on magnifying endoscopy; however, the pathological diagnosis was NEC with an invasion of muscularis mucosa accompanied by lymphovascular invasion. Adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was recommended after ESD; however, the patient did not accept additional treatments. The patient was alive with no recurrence 15 months after ESD. In this case, there were three malignant components among SCC, NEC, and adenocarcinoma with transitional areas among each component in the superficial part of the lesion.