TY - JOUR T1 - Consideration of histopathological subtypes and biopsy techniques in Barrett’s oesophagus surveillance programmes JF - Gut JO - Gut SP - 448 LP - 448 DO - 10.1136/gut.42.3.448-b VL - 42 IS - 3 AU - R C FITZGERALD AU - W R BURNHAM Y1 - 1998/03/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/42/3/448.2.abstract N2 - Editor,—In their recent study Macdonald et al (Gut 1997;41:303–7) concluded that as only 1 in 143 patients was identified as having carcinoma of the oesophagus as a result of surveillance, the policy should be reconsidered. This conclusion raises several questions: Which patients should undergo surveillance and does the histopathological subtype matter? In this study patients eligible for the endoscopy surveillance programme had to be under the age of 70, without other serious coexisting disease. The endoscopic Barrett’s segment was >3 cm in all cases and patients with all histological subtypes (gastric 78% and specialised intestinal metaplasia 18%) were included. The definition of Barrett’s oesophagus has a long and controversial history.1 Specialised intestinal metaplasia is increasingly recognised as being the most common histological subtype,2 ,3 and patients with this epithelial … ER -