Epidemiologic aspects in esophageal pathology focusing on gastroesophageal reflux disease and Barrett’s esophagus

Objective: To determine the main epidemiologic characteristics of esophageal pathology,insisting on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), Barrett’s esophagus (BE) and to evaluate therelationship between these conditions and some widely spread risk factors. Material and methods: Datawere collected from clinical file records archive, endoscopy reports and histopatologic reports and slidesfor 8225 patients (01.01.2005-31.07.2007) who presented esophageal changes during upper digestiveendoscopy. We used Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to assess the normality of variables distribution and thenwe used parametric or non-parametric tests along with multivariate analysis. Results: BE is associatedwith male sex (r=0.039; p<0.001), esophagitis (p=0.001), gastric surgery (r=0.027; p=0.015). BE isnegatively associated with esophageal varices (r=-0.1; p<0.01) and Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection(r=0.024; p=0.02). Age is not an important factor (OR=0.99; p=0.03). Presence of sliding hiatal hernia(SHH) is influenced by body mass index (r=0.533; p<0.001) and female sex (p=0.001). SHH sizeinfluences the severity of esophagitis (r=0.04; p<0.01). The most frequent type of metaplasia is theincomplete intestinal one and the most frequent form of esophageal cancer is adenocarcinoma.Conclusion: BE is associated positively with GERD, esophagitis, male sex and negatively with Hp andesophageal varices. SHH influences severity of esophagitis and is more frequent in female patients.Adenocarcinoma is more frequent that squamous esophageal cancer.