We found the article of Sharma et al (Gut 2006;55:1233–9) of great interest. They have looked into 2-year data comparing the efficacy of achieving complete reversal (endoscopic and histological) between multipolar electrocoagulation (MPEC) and argon plasma coagulation (APC) in patients with Barrett’s oesophagus.

This was an important study if one accepts the hypothesis that the reversal between MPEC and APC may reduce the risk of adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus. However, we believe that the authors have misinterpreted their power calculation for the study and failed to address the potential limitations of both methods if they were to be adopted into standard clinical practice and shown to be of clinical benefit.

Firstly, there were no results on the practical aspects of both procedures for the readers to know whether they would be acceptable to the patients and feasible from the endoscopist point of view. We suspect that these frequent and time-consuming methods …