Endoscopic imaging in Barrett's esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is the only known precursor that predisposes patients to the development of esophageal adenocarcinoma. The current recommended surveillance method is targeted biopsies of any abnormalities followed by random four-quadrant biopsies every 2 cm using standard white light endoscopy. Compliance with this and sampling error are two of the biggest problems. Several novel imaging technologies have been developed to aid the diagnosis of early neoplasia in Barrett's esophagus. There are emerging data that some of these new modalities can increase the yield of detecting dysplasia. This review will discuss some of the present available techniques and technologies including chromoendoscopy, narrow-band imaging, autofluorescence imaging, optical coherence tomography, confocal endomicroscopy and endocytoscopy. Based on the current evidence, these imaging modalities appear to be promising as adjunctive tools to white light endoscopy. A few of them, nevertheless, remain experimental due to expense, lack of expertise, generalizability as well as reproducibility of results.