Feasibility of optical coherence tomography for the evaluation of Barrett's mucosa buried underneath esophageal squamous epithelium.

OBJECTIVES: The evaluation of Barrett's glands buried underneath esophageal squamous epithelium becomes increasingly important to achieve curative treatments. However, clinically available endoscopies have critical limitations in depicting the subsurface structure, resulting in non-curative treatments. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can acquire a high-resolution cross-sectional image, equivalent to an 'optical biopsy'. We aimed to assess the feasibility of the in vivo use of probe-type OCT imaging to evaluate Barrett's mucosa buried underneath esophageal squamous epithelium METHODS: We conducted a single-center prospective study with 14 consecutive patients with Barrett's adenocarcinoma from 2008 to 2014. The enrolled patients were examined by a probe-type OCT in vivo, followed by en bloc endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) with electric marking. Then, the one-to-one correlations between the OCT images of the buried mucosa and their histological assessment were examined.

RESULTS: The overall accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the buried mucosa in the OCT imaging were 85.7% (12/14), 77.8% (7/9), 100% (5/5), 100% (7/7) and 71.4% (5/7), respectively. However, OCT could not easily distinguish non-dysplastic glands from dysplastic glands. Additionally, the linear distance from the histological squamo-columnar junction in correct cases tended to be longer than that in incorrect cases (mm, median [range]: 2.0 [0.7-7.5] vs. 0.5 [0.5-0.5]).

CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated, for the first time, that pre-operative OCT imaging might be feasible for detecting the oral side extension of buried Barrett's mucosa to remove the entire area with malignant potential by ESD. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.