Endoscopic therapy for Barrett′s esophagus

Abstract

Barrett’s esophagus (BE) is the precursor lesion to esophageal adenocarcinoma. This cancer has undergone a rapid increase in incidence in Western societies in the last 30 years. Current practices seek to lower the risk of death from this cancer by performing screening upper endoscopy on those with chronic reflux symptoms, and then surveillance upper endoscopy on those found to have BE at periodic intervals. While this approach is intuitively appealing, no data substantiate a decreased cancer risk with these practices, and substantial issues limit the effectiveness of this approach. This article outlines the current approaches to BE, their shortcomings, and presents data supporting the use of endoscopic therapy for subjects with BE and dysplasia. A significant and growing literature supports the use of endoscopic therapy in BE, and this approach, combined with improved risk stratification, may improve our care of subjects with BE.

Keywords

• gastroesophageal reflux
• barrett’s esophagus
• dysplasia
• surveillance endoscopy
• radiofrequency ablation