Barrett's esophagus, endoscopic treatment, cancer

Barrettʼs esophagus (BE) is a well-known premalignant condition. The diagnosis of BE is made if the distal esophagus is lined with columnar epithelium with a minimum length of 1 cm (tongues or circular) containing specialized intestinal metaplasia (IM) at histopathological examination [1]. BE is associated with a 30- to 50-fold increased risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma, which has an annual incidence of 0.12 % to 0.2 % in patients without intraepithelial neoplasia (IEN) [2, 3]. For this reason, endoscopic surveillance with biopsies of metaplastic epithelium has been recommended to detect dysplasia or cancer at an early stage, when it is still curable, preferably endoscopically.