Low Proportion of Barrett's Esophagus in Asian Americans

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

OBJECTIVES To determine the proportion of Barrett's esophagus (BE) in Asians versus non-Asians and the predictors of BE in patients with upper gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional study to determine the proportion of BE from all consecutive patients who underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) for various indications at an outpatient, community-based gastroenterology practice in northern California from February 2000 to September 2006. BE was defined as endoscopically recognized presence of salmon-pink mucosa in the distal esophagus and intestinal metaplasia on biopsy. We also performed a nested case–control study to determine potential predictors of BE. RESULTS In total, 5,293 patients were reviewed. BE was more common in non-Asians (31/1464, 2.1%) than Asians (29/3829, 0.76%) (P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis controlling for increasing age, male gender, ethnicity, smoking, and alcohol, the strongest predictor of the presence of BE was non-Asian ethnicity (odds ratio [OR] 3.55, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.85–6.85), followed by male gender (OR 2.68, 95% CI 1.32–5.45). CONCLUSION BE is uncommon in Asian Americans; non-Asian ethnicity and male gender are significant independent predictors of BE.