Automated cytological detection of Barrett's neoplasia with infrared spectroscopy.

BACKGROUND: Development of a nonendoscopic test for Barrett's esophagus would revolutionize population screening and surveillance for patients with Barrett's esophagus. Swallowed cell collection devices have recently been developed to obtain cytology brushings from the esophagus: automated detection of neoplasia in such samples would enable large-scale screening and surveillance. METHODS: Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to develop an automated tool for detection of Barrett's esophagus and Barrett's neoplasia in esophageal cell samples. Cytology brushings were collected at endoscopy, cytospun onto slides and FTIR images were measured. An automated cell recognition program was developed to identify individual cells on the slide. RESULTS: Cytology review and contemporaneous histology was used to inform a training dataset containing 141 cells from 17 patients. A classification model was constructed by principal component analysis fed linear discriminant analysis, then tested by leave-one-sample-out cross validation. With application of this training model to whole slide samples, a threshold voting system was used to classify samples according to their constituent cells. Across the entire dataset of 115 FTIR maps from 66 patients, whole samples were classified with sensitivity and specificity respectively as follows: normal squamous cells 79.0% and 81.1%, nondysplastic Barrett's esophagus cells 31.3% and 100%, and neoplastic Barrett's esophagus cells 83.3% and 62.7%. CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of esophageal cell samples can be performed with FTIR spectroscopy with reasonable sensitivity for Barrett's neoplasia, but with poor specificity with the current technique.

How important is peritoneal involvement in rectal cancer? A prospective study of 331 cases.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The importance of circumferential resection margin involvement in predicting locoregional recurrence and death from rectal cancer is well known. However, it is well accepted that cases of rectal carcinoma recur when this surgical margin is not compromised. The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of peritoneal involvement, among other clinicopathological variables, on locoregional recurrence and overall prognosis in an unselected prospective series of rectal cancer resections. METHODS AND RESULTS: This unselected prospective study assessed 331 rectal carcinoma cases from a colorectal cancer study that recruited more than 1000 cases. Meticulous pathological examination was performed by one pathologist, with particular attention paid to the peritoneal surface. All clinicopathological variables were entered into a database with comprehensive clinical follow-up. Peritoneal involvement was a significant factor in prognosis on univariate analysis but not on multivariate analysis. However, in analysing the causes of locoregional recurrence specifically, it may have been a factor in causing this in up to half the cases. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to the small amount of literature data on the potential importance of peritoneal involvement in predicting locoregional recurrence and overall prognosis, especially in upper rectal cancer.