Prior Diagnosis of Barrett's Esophagus Is Infrequent, but Associated with Improved Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Survival.

Background: Efforts to reduce mortality from esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA) have focused on screening and surveillance of Barrett's esophagus (BE).

Aims: We sought to determine the frequency of prior diagnosis of BE in patients with EA and to evaluate the impact of a prior BE diagnosis on mortality in EA patients.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of patients diagnosed with EA in the VA during 2002-2016. We compared the distributions of EA stage and receipt of treatment between EA patients with and without a prior BE diagnosis and used Cox proportional hazards models to compare mortality risk (all-cause and cancer specific) unadjusted and adjusted for stage and treatment to assess their impact on any survival differences.

Results: Among 8564 EA patients, only 4.9% had a prior BE diagnosis. The proportion with prior BE diagnosis increased from 3.2% in EA patients diagnosed during 2005-2007 to 7.0% in those diagnosed during 2014-2016. EA patients with a prior BE diagnosis were more likely to have stage 1 disease and receive any treatment. A prior BE diagnosis was associated with lower all-cause mortality risk (hazard ratio [HR] unadjusted for stage, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.61-0.80), which was largely explained by the earlier stage of EA at the time of diagnosis (HR adjusted for stage, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.75-0.99). There was no evidence of lead time bias or length time bias.

Conclusions: Prior diagnosis of BE was associated with better survival, largely due to earlier EA stage at diagnosis.