Molecular biomarkers to predict progression of Barrett’s Oesophagus
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Molecular biomarkers to predict progression of Barrett’s Oesophagus (BO) to Oesophageal Adenocarcinoma (OAC)
IRAS ID
314357
Contact name
Richard Turkington
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Queen's University Belfast
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) incidence has increased dramatically in Western populations in recent decades and the UK has the highest incidence of OAC world-wide but also has some of the poorest survival rates. Barrett's oesophagus (BO) is the precursor of high-grade dysplasia (HGD) and OAC, and endoscopic surveillance of BO patients is commonly practised, aiming to diagnose cancer early and improve outcomes. Standard screening relies upon the identification of dysplasia to select patients for more intensive screening, ablation, or even surgical resection. The detection of dysplasia shows substantial inter-observer variability between pathologists and requires a large population to undergo invasive and costly endoscopic surveillance. In short, current strategies are over-diagnosing low-risk non-progressive disease, while under-diagnosing high-risk life-threatening lesions. New approaches are required to identify BO lesions at high risk of progression to High Grade Dysplasia (HGD)/OAC to facilitate endoscopic therapy or improve surveillance. Using the Northern Ireland Barrett’s Register (NIBR), one of the largest and highest quality population-based register of BO worldwide, the proposed project will develop a molecular signature using transcriptomics, that may be applied in clinical practice to stratify BO patients according to cancer risk. This will enable high-risk BO lesions to be eradicated endoscopically, while low-risk patients can have the frequency of endoscopic screening reduced or even discontinued, maximizing benefits, and reducing harms.
REC name
Wales REC 5
REC reference
22/WA/0205
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jul 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion