Surveillance in Barrett esophagus

The only known precursor of the esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is represented by the Barrett's esophagus (BE). EAC incidence has increased sharply in the last 4 decades. The annual conversion rate of BE to cancer is small but significant; therefore the identification of patients at a higher risk of cancer represents a dilemma. The endoscopic surveillance of BE aims to detect dysplasia and in particular high-grade dysplasia and intramucosal cancers that can be endoscopically treated before progressing to invasive cancer with lymph node metastases. Using standard white light endoscopy (WLE), these high-risk lesions are often subtle and hard to detect. In addition to high-definition standard endoscopy, chromoendoscopy (CE), virtual chromoendoscopy (e.g. narrow band imaging), and confocal laser endomicroscopy might increase the diagnostic efficiency for the detection of dysplastic lesions and can also increase the diagnostic efficiency for the detection of BE dysplasia or cancer. This ability to detect subtle mucosal abnormalities that harbor high-grade dysplasia (HGD) or intramucosal carcinoma might enable endoscopists skilled in the assessment of BE to perform targeted rather than random biopsies. The standard protocol will remain the careful examination by using conventional high-resolution endoscopes, combined with a longer inspection time, which is associated with an increased detection of dysplasia until these modalities have been demonstrated to enhance efficiency or be cost effective. Many of the limitations of the current clinical standard may be overcome in the future by the use of multi-modal imaging combined with molecular information.