Prevalence of Barrett's esophagus in Northern Greece: A Prospective Study (Barrett's esophagus)

Background: Barrett's esophagus(BE) is a premalignant condition associated with chronic gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). As only a small proportion of BE progresses to malignancy, it is important to study BE prevalence to prevent adenocarcinoma. Materials and Methods: Between January 2007 and December 2010, all consecutive individuals who underwent routine upper endoscopy were prospectively recruited. Patients referred for GERD were excluded from the study. Clinical and endoscopic data were collected. Results: A total of 1,990 patients (mean age 47.48+/-13.4 years; 52.8% males) were included. Of them, 496 (24.9%) reported GERD. Erosive esophagitis (EE) was found in 221 participants (11.1%, 193 patients with LA grade A and 28 patients with LA grade B). Overall 31 of 1494 participants not reporting reflux symptoms (2.07%) suffered from silent GERD. BE was diagnosed in 75 participants (3.77%), four (5.3%) with long-segment BE and 71 (94.7%) with short-segment BE. Low-grade dysplasia was noticed in 1 patient with long-segment BE. Hiatal hernia (HH) was found in 196 patients (9.8%), and mean HH length was 3.22+/-0.2 cm. BE was correlated to EE, GERD and the presence of HH (p=0.0167, <0.001 and 0.017, respectively) whereas it was not associated with age, alcohol consumption and smoking (p=0.057, 0.099 and 0.06, respectively). BE was not correlated with Helicobacter pylori infection (p=0.542). Conclusion: The prevalence of BE was 3.77% in a Greek population undergoing upper endoscopy not referred for GERD. Long-segment BE was very uncommon (0.2%) whereas 2.07% of patients not reporting symptoms suffered from silent GERD.