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During the past two decades, the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma has been rising faster than that of any other type of cancer — by 4% to 10% annually — but the cause of this increase is unknown. Because metaplastic changes associated with Barrett esophagus (BE) precede most, if not all, esophageal adenocarcinomas, the reported increased incidence of BE could explain the increased incidence of esophageal adenocarcinomas. Researchers in the Netherlands used a population-based general practice database of more than 500,000 patient records to evaluate changes in incidence of BE in relation to the use of diagnostic endoscopy.
Investigators identified 138 incident cases of BE with histologic confirmation of intestinal metaplasia and 122 inc…