PDT for Barrett's esophagus: Status and unsolved problems

PDT had been proposed in gastroenterology for various indications and the esophageal cancer treatment had been among the very first having been approved. However, PDT failed to be a real breakthrough. One reason for it was that although it had been approved for the palliative treatment of advanced tumors, PDT only has by nature a limited in-depth efficacy fitting better to the treatment and often the cure of "early cancers". For this reason PDT has also been proposed for the treatment of Barrett's esophagus (BE) with high-grade dysplasias. Barrett's mucosa (BM) is a field of a specialized metaplastic columnar epithelium replacing the normal stratified squamous epithelium or mucosa lining the distal esophagus. In this case, PDT has to destroy an area of thin tissues spread eventually over a wide area instead of a mass of tissues. Something important is that existing treatments allow the treatment of foci of dysplastic tissues but not the regression of the whole BM. BE is thus an unsolved medical problem having medical as well as economic consequences as BM being likely to transform into a cancer has to be carefully surveyed. The esophageal cancer, an adenocarcinoma, has to be surgically removed when it is possible something pretty heavy with a high morbidity. Economic burnt is also important with high survey costs independently to the additional surgical costs in case of diagnosed cancer. Treatments proposed for non or mild dysplastic BM regression have in common to have an inhomogenous impact on the target. Treatments for high-grade dysplasia (HGD, the ultimate pathological step before cancer) are based on mucosectomy and are limited to small areas of tissues. Recently circumferential mucosectomy had been proposed but at a higher risk making it suitable only to highly experienced hands in infrequent indications.