The diagnostic value of magnifying endoscopy with blue light imaging in early gastric cancer

Magnifying endoscopy with blue laser imaging (ME-BLI) is a novel image-enhanced endoscopic technique utilizing a laser light source optimized for narrow-band observation. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of ME-BLI in diagnosing early gastric neoplastic lesions. From July 2022 to June 2024, 288 patients at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University were enrolled. All participants underwent conventional white-light endoscopy followed by ME-BLI examination and targeted biopsy. Pathological results identified 21 cases as early gastric cancer (GC) and 67 as non-early GC. Comparative analysis revealed that the presence of a demarcation line (DL), irregular microvessels (MV), and irregular microsurface structure (MS) was significantly more frequent in the early GC group than in the non-early GC group (all P < .001). The combination of DL, MV, and MS demonstrated high diagnostic performance for early GC, with an area under the curve of 0.875. In conclusion, ME-BLI is a valuable tool for the diagnosis of early GC, and the combined assessment of DL, MV, and MS provides an objective, user-friendly, and reproducible approach.