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Rates of upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and gastro-oesophageal malignancy outcomes
  1. Alexander C Ford1,2,
  2. Laura F Glenn1,
  3. Paul Moayyedi3
  1. 1 Leeds Gastroenterology Institute, St. James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK
  2. 2 Leeds Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
  3. 3 Gastroenterology Division, McMaster University, Health Sciences Center, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Alex Ford, Leeds Gastroenterology Institute, St. James's University Hospital, Room 125, 4th Floor, Bexley Wing, St. James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7TF, UK; alexf12399{at}yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2013-305635

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    We read the excellent paper by Shawihdi et al with interest.1 The authors demonstrated in a retrospective study, using hospital episode statistics, that outcomes from gastro-oesophageal malignancy were worse among patients from practices with a low referral rate for upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy.

    While the authors address some weaknesses in their data, we believe they have not highlighted all problems with their approach. As with all observational data, there is the problem of confounding, which often cannot be completely corrected in analyses. However, the major concern is that they looked at aggregate data, not individual patient data. This is open to the ecological fallacy; what is seen in populations …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors ACF, LFG and PM conceived the study. ACF drafted the manuscript. All authors have approved the final draft of the manuscript.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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