Barrett Esophagus: Evolving Concepts in Diagnosis and Neoplastic Progression

Mikhail Lisovsky; Amitabh Srivastava

doi:10.1016/j.path.2013.05.002

Barrett Esophagus: Evolving Concepts in Diagnosis and Neoplastic Progression

Surg Pathol Clin. 2013 Sep;6(3):475-96. doi: 10.1016/j.path.2013.05.002. Epub 2013 Aug 6.

Authors

Mikhail Lisovsky¹, Amitabh Srivastava²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA.
² Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: ASrivastava@partners.org.

PMID: 26839097
DOI: 10.1016/j.path.2013.05.002

Abstract

Surgical pathologists need to answer 2 questions when evaluating biopsies from the distal esophagus or gastroesophageal junction in patients with a history of gastroesophageal reflux disease: Are the findings consistent with Barrett esophagus? and Is there any evidence of dysplasia? Pathologists should be well informed about the controversy around the definition of Barrett esophagus and the common pitfalls that lead to a false-positive diagnosis of Barrett esophagus or Barrett esophagus-associated dysplasia. A concise description of distinct morphologic types of dysplasia in Barrett esophagus and a summary of recent data on the natural history of BE are provided in this review.

Keywords: Adenocarcinoma; Barrett’s esophagus; Cancer; Dysplasia; Esophagus; Metaplasia; Prognosis.