Diagnostic ability of blue laser imaging combined with magnifying endoscopy for early esophageal cancer

Blue laser imaging (BLI) is a new image-enhanced endoscopy technique that utilizes a laser light source developed for narrow-band light observation.

To evaluate the value of BLI combined with magnifying endoscopy (M-BLI) for the diagnosis of early esophageal cancers (EECs).

This single-center prospective study analyzed 149 patients with focal esophageal lesions detected with white light endoscopy (WLE) at Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University between April 2015 and June 2017. In this study, patients were examined sequentially with narrow-band imaging combined with magnifying endoscopy (M-NBI), M-BLI and 1.25% Lugol's iodine chromoendoscopy. The concordance between endoscopic diagnosis and pathological diagnosis was evaluated using the agreement (kappa) test. The paired chi-square test was used to compare the concordance of M-NBI, M-BLI and Lugol's iodine chromoendoscopy.

This study analyzed 153 lesions (four patients had two lesions each). The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, concordance rates and kappa value of M-BLI were 95.2%, 91.9%, 85.7%, 92.8% and 0.891, respectively; those of M-NBI were 95.2%, 92.8%, 87.5%, 93.5% and 0.906; and those of Lugol's iodine chromoendoscopy were 95.2%, 94.6%, 91.3%, 94.8% and 0.936.

M-BLI has a diagnostic profile similar to that of M-NBI and could improve the accuracy of EEC diagnosis.