Study of Endoscopic Barrett's Esophagus Diagnosis

Oregon Health and Science University13 enrolled

Overview

Barrett's esophagus (BE) is a condition that often occurs in patients who have had GERD for a long time. The researchers are interested in BE because it can sometimes become a cancer in the esophagus. The way that we currently diagnose BE is by performing an upper endoscopy and looking for a change in the color of the esophagus. This color change may represent BE. If the doctor sees this, he/she may take biopsies of this area. Studies have shown that making the diagnosis of BE can be hard to make. One of the reasons why this may be is because doctors may interpret what they see differently during the procedure. In other words, they may see an esophagus that appears normal in color or abnormal in color. The purpose of this study is to compare two doctors' impressions of the appearance of the esophagus during a single endoscopy procedure.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

Conditions

Barrett's Esophagus GERD

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 80 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * History of (h/o) GERD * Upper GI symptoms such as acid taste in mouth, dysphagia, dyspepsia * Screening or surveillance exam for BE Exclusion Criteria: * Unable to consent * History of esophageal varices

Locations (2)

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

The primary outcome will be the interobserver variability in the presence of columnar epithelium as well as the measured lengths.

Time frame: one endoscopy visit

Secondary Outcomes

frequency of pathology-confirmed BE

Time frame: one endoscopy visit

variables that predict endoscopic interobserver agreement and path-confirmation

Time frame: one endoscopy visit