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Background

The great variety of gastrointestinal lesions, in terms of shape, location, size, and invasiveness, implicates that a high number of different techniques are necessary to address all of them. Since the introduction of snare resection of pedunculated polyps (snare polypectomy) in the early 70's, many different devices and procedures were developed: strip-off biopsy, strip biopsy, EMR with cap, and EMR with ligation, just to mention the most important [1]. But there is still room for improvement:

-	With current standard methods of EMR, resection of lesions greater than 20mm in diameter has to be done in multiple pieces [2].
-	Some methods need withdrawal and reintroduction of the endoscope, e.g. for attaching a distal cap [3].
-	Some methods require a double-channel endoscope or two endoscopes [4].
-	The risk of hemorrhage and perforation is still significant [5].

To address these problems, many different devices and procedures were developed and the development process is still ongoing. The goal of this survey is to create knowledge about current and future needs of gastroenterologists regarding EMR procedures, to be able to orientate this development process to the requirement of the users.

This survey is part of a biomedical research project, carried out by IHCI in cooperation with the Institute of Anatomy at Tuebingen University and the novineon Healthcare Technology Partners GmbH.

	Institute of Anatomy at Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany. For more information, visit the Institute of Anatomy website.
	novineon Healthcare Technology Partners GmbH, Tuebingen, Germany. For more information, visit the novineon website.