• Patricio Burdiles, Attila Csendes, Gladys Smok, Italo Braghetto, and Owen Korn.
• Departamento de Cirugía, Hospital Clínico, Universidad de Chile, Santos Dumont 999, Independencia, Santiago, Chile. pburdiles@ns.hospital.uchile.cl
• Rev Med Chil. 2003 Jun 1; 131 (6): 587-96.

BackgroundThe potential progression from intestinal metaplasia to low grade dysplasia, to high grade dysplasia and to adenocarcinoma represents a well recognized sequence in patients with Barrett's esophagus (BE). The time required for this transformation is not well known.AimTo report the results of a 10 years follow up of patients with BE.Material And MethodsBetween 1989 and 2000 we followed 402 patients with BE.ResultsSixty six subjects (16.2%) presented low grade dysplasia at the time of diagnosis and 10 patients (2 women/8 men) developed adenocarcinoma during the follow-up period. Four out of these 10 patients were operated because of gastro-esophageal reflux disease, but after 3-5 years, reflux symptoms recurred. The other 6 patients rejected surgery and were on Omeprazole with good symptomatic results. Two patients had a short BE (< 3 cm), seven cases had a classic BE (3-10 cm) and one patient had an extensive > 10 cm BE. The mean time elapsed from intestinal metaplasia to low grade dysplasia was 9 months, to high grade dysplasia 56 months and to adenocarcinoma 82 months. From low grade dysplasia to early cancer it was 18 months, from high grade dysplasia to early cancer 14 months and from high grade dysplasia to advanced transmural cancer 14 months. All patients were subjected to esophagectomy. Five patients detected as State I are alive without any evidence of recurrence after 36 to 130 months after surgery. Five patients with advanced transmural carcinoma subjected to radical esophagectomy died because of progression of the malignancy between 3 and 24 months after surgery.ConclusionsProgression to adenocarcinoma may occur even in absence of reflux symptoms while on acid suppression therapy. Detection at early stage intestinal metaplasia in the esophagus offers a high chance of cure after surgical resection.

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