Overall and Cause-Specific Mortality in Patients With Barrett's Esophagus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Population-Based Studies.

Introduction: Current guidelines recommend endoscopic surveillance of Barrett's esophagus (BE) but do not account for competing mortality unrelated to esophageal cancer (EC). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate EC and non-EC mortality risk in BE patients.

Methods: We searched multiple databases for studies reporting mortality in BE. We included population-based studies providing standardized mortality ratio (SMR). The primary outcome was SMR from all causes and EC and non-EC etiologies. SMR was calculated by dividing the observed mortality over the expected mortality. Logarithmic form of SMRs was pooled using random-effects model.

Results: Our search yielded 2,826 articles, of which 7 studies (n = 34,454) were included. All-cause mortality was elevated in BE patients compared with population controls (pooled SMR 1.24, 95% confident interval [CI] 1.01-1.53) driven in part by increased EC mortality risk (SMR 8.98, 95 CI 5.12-15.77). The mortality risk was still increased but attenuated after excluding EC mortality (SMR 1.21, 95% CI 1-1.46). There was no increased mortality risk of non-EC malignancies (SMR 1.22, 95% CI 0.82-1.82) or mortality due to noncancer etiologies (SMR 1.13, 95% CI 0.90-1.43). Death due to cardiovascular diseases was higher in BE (SMR 1.16, 95% CI 1.02-1.33). BE patients were 10 times more likely to die from noncancer etiologies than EC (risk ratio 10.71, 95% CI 5.98-19.16). Subgroup analysis of studies that excluded prevalent EC at baseline (3 studies) also showed increased all-cause (SMR 1.12, 95% CI 1.07-1.18) and EC mortality (SMR 4.7, 95% CI 3.58-6.17) among BE patients.

Discussion: BE patients exhibit a higher all-cause mortality, driven in part by risk of EC mortality. A personalized approach to surveillance, mitigating risk of EC while recognizing the broader mortality risks, is warranted.