Evaluation of image-enhanced endoscopic technology using advanced diagnostic endoscopy for the detection of early gastric cancer: a pilot study

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS : Image-enhanced endoscopy (IEE) plays an important role in early detection and detailed examination of early gastric cancer (EGC). The current study aimed to clarify the efficacy of IEE using advanced diagnostic endoscopy for EGC detection without magnification. PATIENTS AND METHODS : We performed endoscopic examinations without magnification in patients referred to our hospital with a diagnosis of upper gastrointestinal tumor detected through routine screening endoscopy. In this study, we used three IEE technologies: narrow-band imaging; blue laser imaging; and i-scan optical enhancement. The detection rates for EGC between IEE and white-light imaging (WLI) were compared. RESULTS : Between July 2013 and June 2014, 156 patients were enrolled. Among upper gastrointestinal tumors, we analyzed endoscopic examination results of 119 lesions that were histologically diagnosed as EGC in 109 patients. The EGC detection rate in the IEE plus WLI groups was 77.3 %. Although the EGC detection rate in the IEE group was higher than that in the WLI group (80.0 % vs. 70.3 %), there was no significant difference between these two modalities. An important detection factor using IEE was tumor circumference, where the rate of detection in the anterior wall and lesser curvature was significantly higher than that in the posterior wall and greater curvature ( P = 0.046). An important detection factor using WLI was color variation, where the rate of occurrence of a reddened or pale tumor was significantly higher than that of normal colored tumors ( P = 0.030). CONCLUSIONS : The detection rate of EGC without magnification was similar between the IEE group and the WLI group. Important detection factors differed between IEE and WLI; therefore, the IEE and WLI modalities have different characteristics regarding EGC detection. Consequently, we propose to use both IEE and WLI in the evaluation of EGC.