Shan GD, Ning LG, Zhang FM, Du HJ, Chen WG, Wang JJ, Li AQ, Xu GQ, Chen HT. Clinicopathological and endoscopic ultrasonography characteristics of esophageal bronchogenic cysts: A single-center study. World J Gastrointest Surg 2025; 17(8): 108692 [DOI: 10.4240/wjgs.v17.i8.108692]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hong-Tan Chen, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China. chenhongtan@zju.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Guo-Dong Shan, Long-Gui Ning, Fen-Ming Zhang, Hao-Jie Du, Wen-Guo Chen, Jing-Jie Wang, Ai-Qing Li, Guo-Qiang Xu, Hong-Tan Chen, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Guo-Dong Shan and Long-Gui Ning.
Author contributions: Shan GD and Ning LG analyzed and interpreted data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript, they contributed equally to this article, they are the co-first authors of this manuscript; Ning LG performed the statistical analysis; Shan GD and Chen HT contributed to the conception and design of the study; Ning LG, Zhang FM, Du HJ, Chen WG, Wang JJ, and Li AQ contributed to the acquisition of data; Xu GQ and Chen HT critically revised the manuscript; and all authors contributed to the article, and approved the submitted version.
Supported by Zhejiang Provincial Medical and Health Science and Technology Project, No. 2022-KY1-001-198.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine First Affiliated Hospital, No. 211 for Research of 2022-Fast.
Informed consent statement: This is a retrospective study, and we have applied for an informed consent waiver from the ethics committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The data related to this article is available from the corresponding author (chenhongtan@zju.edu.cn).
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong-Tan Chen, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China. chenhongtan@zju.edu.cn
Received: April 21, 2025 Revised: May 30, 2025 Accepted: July 10, 2025 Published online: August 27, 2025 Processing time: 126 Days and 23 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Esophageal bronchogenic cysts (EBCs) are usually discovered incidentally during radiologic or endoscopic examinations. They are rare and prone to misdiagnosis or mistreatment. As a submucosal lesion, the endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) characteristics of EBCs are unclear.
AIM
To analyze the clinicopathological and EUS characteristics of EBCs.
METHODS
A total of 22 patients with a histological diagnosis of EBCs who underwent EUS examination were retrospectively included. The clinicopathological and EUS features were collected and analyzed.
RESULTS
Most of the EBCs were asymptomatic, and no malignant transformation or precancerous changes was found histologically. Most of the EBCs were located in the lower esophagus (72.7%, 16/22). A total of 90.9% (20/22) of the EBCs originated from the muscularis propria, and 9.1% (2/22) originated from the submucosa. All of the lesions had clear boundaries. In terms of echo, 77.3% (17/22) had a hypoechoic pattern, and 22.7% (5/22) had an anechoic pattern. We found floating echoes inside the lesion, which presented as a punctiform hyperecho in 45.5% (10/22) and a flocculent hypoecho in 36.4% (8/22) of the patients. A total of 45.5% (10/22) displayed posterior wall enhancement. Fourteen patients underwent color doppler, and no blood flow signal was identified. On EUS elastography, the EBCs presented a yellow-green or green pattern (100%, 6/6). When contrast-enhanced EUS was used, the EBCs showed no enhancement (100%, 5/5).
CONCLUSION
When a submucosal lesion located at the lower esophagus originates from the intrinsic muscle layer, the possibility of EBCs should be noted, the EUS characteristics of which include a hypoecho with a clear boundary and a posterior wall enhancement, a floating echo inside and no blood flow signal, a yellow-green or green pattern on elastography, and no enhancement on contrast EUS.
Core Tip: Esophageal bronchogenic cysts (EBCs) are usually discovered incidentally during radiologic or endoscopic examinations. They are rare and prone to misdiagnosis or mistreatment. We retrospectively analyzed the clinicopathological and endoscopic ultrasonography features of 22 patients with EBCs. Our findings emphasize the critical role of endoscopic ultrasonography for the preoperative diagnosis and treatment of EBCs.
