Racial Disparity in Barrett's Esophagus

Inclusion Criteria

• •Aged 18 to 80
• •Self-identify is "not Hispanic or Latino" and either "African American" or "White."
• •Cases will be eligible for inclusion if they have endoscopically evident Barrett's Esophagus (BE) of any length. BE will be defined as: 1) Any upward displacement of the squamocolumnar junction noted on endoscopy such that the interface of squamous and columnar mucosa is no longer at the interface of the most distal tubular esophagus and the proximal gastric folds. The characteristic pale pink coloration of the squamous epithelium in these areas will be replaced by the darker salmon color commonly seen in BE. 2) Histologic interpretation of biopsies consistent with intestinal columnar metaplasia containing goblet cells, which are positively stained by Alcian blue staining as barrel-shaped cells.
• •Controls will be eligible for inclusion if they have classic symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), but no endoscopic or histological evidence of BE. Both erosive and non-erosive GERD will be eligible. Because we expect GERD to outnumber BE and patients with GERD may be slightly less willing to participate in the study than patients with BE (based on recruitment for the studies noted above), we plan to randomly sample one fourth of eligible controls. If approximately 20% fewer GERD than BE participate, a final study population with an approximately 1:2 BE to GERD ratio will be achieved. Oversampling of patients with GERD will improve study power.