Response to: ‘Endoscopic intermuscular dissection for rectal cancer: are we ready to skip surgery?’ by Ichimasa et al

We would like to thank Dr Ichimasa and colleagues for their comments on our recent publication reporting the 3-year oncological outcomes of endoscopic intermuscular dissection (EID) for deep submucosal invasive rectal cancer.1 2 We appreciate their engagement with our work and welcome the opportunity to address the points they raised.