The Frequency of Dysplasia of Barrett’s Esophagus in Gerd Patient – In a Tertiary Care Hospital of Bangladesh

Aims: To find out dysplasia of Barrett’s esophagus in GERD patient attending the OPD of gastroenterology of BSMMU.

Study Design: Bangladesh has a high prevalence of gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). When gastro-esophageal reflux disease occurs, Barrett's esophagus (BE) develops. It is unknown how frequently GERD patients with Barrett's esophagus dysplasia occur.

Place and Duration of Study: This cross-sectional study was carried out in the department of Gastroenterology, BSMMU from August 2019 to March 2021.

Methodology: On the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria 106 GERD patients were enrol as study population. GERD were diagnosed on the basis of typical symptoms of patients using Bengali translated version of validated questionnaire by Menterola et al. Barrett’s esophagus diagnosed endoscopically and histopathological finding. Barrett’s esophagus was expressed as frequency. Unpaired t test, chi-square test and Fisher exact test were used to test the different variable. Statistical analyses were carried out by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA).

Results: Our proposed sample size was 213 but finally a total of 106 subjects included in this study due to COVID 19 pandemic situation. The mean age was found 34.7±9.9 years with range from 18 to 59 years. The mean duration of symptoms of the study population in Barrett’s patients were 4.22±2.16 years. Among 106 study population endoscopically suspected Barrett’s esophagus (ESBE) were 20(18.87%) and remaining 86 (81.13%) had non-Barrett’s esophagus. Among 20 patients of endoscopically suspected Barrett’s patients, 13(12.3%) patients had histopathologically proven Barrett’s esophagus and remaining 93(87.7%) were non-Barrett’s esophagus. Among 13 patients of histologically proven Barrett’s esophagus 3(23.1%) had low grade, 2(15.4%) had high grade and 8(61.5%) had no dysplasia.

Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that Barrett's esophageal dysplasia is not very common. Large multicenter studies are necessary to elucidate the clinical and epidemiological factors associated with Barrett's esophageal dysplasia development.