Abstract
Background and study aims Endoscopic imaging of Barrett’s esophagus (BE) with advanced technologies, such as
optical coherence tomography (OCT) and volumetric laser endomicroscopy (VLE), allows
targeted biopsies and may reduce the number of random biopsies to detect esophageal
neoplasia in the early stages during endoscopic BE surveillance. The aim of this study
was to evaluate the accuracy of OCT and VLE in diagnosis of intestinal metaplasia,
dysplasia, and high-grade dysplasia (HGD), and intramucosal carcinoma (IMC) in BE.
Patients and methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the primary outcome measure was diagnostic
accuracy of OCT and VLE, in comparison with the gold standard. In the meta-analysis,
we calculated sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (LR+), negative
likelihood ratio (LR-), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) for both methods. We performed
analyses by patient and by lesion.
Results We evaluated 14 studies involving a collective total of 721 patients and 1565 lesions.
In the analysis by lesion, VLE showed a pooled sensitivity, specificity, LR+, LR−,
DOR, and SROC AUC of 85 %, 73 %, 3.2, 0.21, 15.0, and 0.87, respectively, for detection
of HGD/IMC. In the analysis by lesion for detection of HGD/EAC, OCT showed a pooled
sensitivity, specificity, LR+, LR−, DOR, and summary receiver operating characteristic
area under the curve of 89 %, 91 %, 9.6, 0.12, 81.0, and 0.95, respectively. The accuracy
of OCT in identifying intestinal metaplasia showed a pooled sensitivity, specificity,
LR+, LR−, and DOR of 92 %, 81 %, 5.06, 0.091, and 55.58, respectively.
Conclusion OCT- and VLE-guided targeted biopsies could improve detection of dysplasia and neoplasia.
Further studies could determine whether the use of such biopsies might replace the
current protocol.