Are Screening and Surveillance for BE in GERD Patients Cost-Effective?

The most recent American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) guidelines recommend screening and surveillance for patients with specialized columnar epithelium, but the most cost-effective screening strategy to detect Barrett esophagus (BE) is a subject of ongoing analysis and debate. Researchers performed a decision analysis to examine the cost-effectiveness of screening and surveillance for BE in a hypothetic cohort of 50-year-old white men who had symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The model compared (a) no screening or surveillance with (b) one-time screening at age 50, accompanied by 1 of 2 surveillance strategies: (1) surveillance limited to BE patients with dysplasia only (with surveillance for low- and high-grade dyspl…