A new study supporting early screening for GERD

unclaw2002
unclaw2002 Member Posts: 599
in Esophageal Cancer #1
All,

Below is a link to a study completed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center which found that Esophageal Cancer Risk Higher in Medically Treated GERD Patients with Fewest Symptoms
http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2011/Pages/Esophageal-Cancer-Risk-Higher-in-GERD-Patients.aspx. (copy and cut and paste into your browser)

The study was printed in the current issue of Archives of Surgery. Quoting from the press release . . . "Our research indicates that even patients without severe symptoms may benefit from Barrett's esophagus screening," Dr. Jobe noted. "If GERD patients are screened early enough, there is a better chance that Barrett's esophagus can be identified before it becomes cancerous," he stated. "We are learning that the chronic and long-term use of PPIs may not be entirely without consequences and may lead to more insidious problems such as calcium malabsorption or cause one to be asymptomatic in the face of continued esophageal injury from GERD."

Dr. Jobe and his Pitt colleagues have established the Barrett's Esophagus Risk Consortium (BERC), in which primary care patients are being screened with in-office, small-caliber, unsedated endoscopy in an attempt to better understand risk factors for the condition as well as lower the threshold for screening. The multicenter effort is funded by the National Institutes of Health."

Certainly something for all of us to be aware of - and information that we should share to help establish better screening proticols and awareness so more people can be diagnosed early.

Best,
Cindy

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    #2
    This comment has been removed by the Moderator
  • NikiMo
    NikiMo Member Posts: 342
    #3
    unknown said:

    This comment has been removed by the Moderator

    Interesting, but...
    Cindy and William,

    Thanks for sharing the articles, I have a question though. Through everything I have been reading it is not always easy to identify Barret's esophagus in all patients. My husband had an endoscopy last year with a biopsy and he was completely free of disease, no high grade displaysia or h. pylori. He had a repair for a hiatal hernia at that time. When he started having problems swallowing he immediately followed up with his GI, they did another scope and biopsy and found T2N1M0 adenocar. The oncologist told us Jeff had barret's esophagus which caused the EC. I asked him how he knew that and he said because that would be he only cause as he did not have other risk factors, no smoking or dirnking which is usually more related with squamous cell anyway. It leaves me scratching my head, I can't help but feel this could have been avoided. But, every doctor I spoke to this time around doesn't think the doc's last year missed anything. All very frustrating, but leads me to believe that BE isn't always that easy to diagnose either. So many questions around EC, feels like there are more questions than answers really....

    Niki
  • dodger21
    dodger21 Member Posts: 85 Member
    #4
    NikiMo said:

    Interesting, but...
    Cindy and William,

    Thanks for sharing the articles, I have a question though. Through everything I have been reading it is not always easy to identify Barret's esophagus in all patients. My husband had an endoscopy last year with a biopsy and he was completely free of disease, no high grade displaysia or h. pylori. He had a repair for a hiatal hernia at that time. When he started having problems swallowing he immediately followed up with his GI, they did another scope and biopsy and found T2N1M0 adenocar. The oncologist told us Jeff had barret's esophagus which caused the EC. I asked him how he knew that and he said because that would be he only cause as he did not have other risk factors, no smoking or dirnking which is usually more related with squamous cell anyway. It leaves me scratching my head, I can't help but feel this could have been avoided. But, every doctor I spoke to this time around doesn't think the doc's last year missed anything. All very frustrating, but leads me to believe that BE isn't always that easy to diagnose either. So many questions around EC, feels like there are more questions than answers really....

    Niki

    Last year
    Niki,
    out of curiosity, did you get a photo with your husbands last years endoscopy? If he had barretts then, the area is normally red and scaly with no lump. I am Stage 0 with hardly any lump. To go from one diagnosis to another in the space of 12 months is astounding. Especially as people with barretts are only ever told to get checked up once every one or two years.
    Danielle
  • NikiMo
    NikiMo Member Posts: 342
    #5
    dodger21 said:

    Last year
    Niki,
    out of curiosity, did you get a photo with your husbands last years endoscopy? If he had barretts then, the area is normally red and scaly with no lump. I am Stage 0 with hardly any lump. To go from one diagnosis to another in the space of 12 months is astounding. Especially as people with barretts are only ever told to get checked up once every one or two years.
    Danielle

    I only have the biopsy...
    I think I will call and ask for the pictures from the endoscopy from last year, good suggestion. I sit here and debate with myself if it really helps us to know if they missed something last year. I just can't see how my husband could go from nothing detected to stage 2 EC. At this point I am almost hoping they missed it last year, otherwise I feel he must have an extremely aggressive form of this cancer. But, that would also mean he has been walking around with this cancer in him for way too long. There is no good answer here, it also leaves me stumped that they would not tell a patient who had to have a nissen fundoplication for a hernia repair to watch out for EC and get scoped at least anually. I think it all sums up to not enough awareness about EC...

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