Clinical consequences of nonadherence to Barrett’s esophagus surveillance recommendations: a Multicenter prospective cohort study


 Half of Barrett’s esophagus (BE) surveillance endoscopies do not adhere to guideline recommendations. In this multicenter prospective cohort study, we assessed the clinical consequences of nonadherence to recommended surveillance intervals and biopsy protocol. Data from BE surveillance patients were collected from endoscopy and pathology reports; questionnaires were distributed among endoscopists. We estimated the association between (non)adherence and (i) endoscopic curability of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), (ii) mortality, and (iii) misclassification of histological diagnosis according to a multistate hidden Markov model. Potential explanatory parameters (patient, facility, endoscopist variables) for nonadherence, related to clinical impact, were analyzed. In 726 BE patients, 3802 endoscopies were performed by 167 endoscopists. Adherence to surveillance interval was 16% for non-dysplastic (ND)BE, 55% for low-grade dysplasia (LGD), and 54% of endoscopies followed the Seattle protocol. There was no evidence to support the following statements: longer surveillance intervals or fewer biopsies than recommended affect endoscopic curability of EAC or cause-specific mortality (P > 0.20); insufficient biopsies affect the probability of NDBE (OR 1.0) or LGD (OR 2.3) being misclassified as high-grade dysplasia/EAC (P > 0.05). Better adherence was associated with older patients (OR 1.1), BE segments ≤ 2 cm (OR 8.3), visible abnormalities (OR 1.8, all P ≤ 0.05), endoscopists with a subspecialty (OR 3.2), and endoscopists who deemed histological diagnosis an adequate marker (OR 2.0). Clinical consequences of nonadherence to guidelines appeared to be limited with respect to endoscopic curability of EAC and mortality. This indicates that BE surveillance recommendations should be optimized to minimize the burden of endoscopies.