Barrett's Esophagus
What is "Barrett's esophagus"?
Berrett's esophagus is a condition where chronic acid exposure in the esophagus causes an inflammatory reaction within the lining of the esophagus.
What is the treatment for Barrett's esophagus?
The treatment for Barrett's oesophagus is to maximally suppress acid reflux to the best of our ability, which generally is done through prescription-type medications as well as dietary modifications. What is important is that if somebody has Barrett's oesophagus we need to put them in a surveillance modality, where generally once every year we do a procedure called an upper endoscopy where with a camera and a light source we take a good look inside the lining of the oesophagus. Of course this procedure is done under sedation for comfort reasons. What we do during the time that we do this procedure is we take a lot of biopsies of this lining of the oesophagus and with the help of a pathologist we try to determine if there's any advancement in this pre-cancerous change that is going on in the oesophagus.
