i.ve received a letter from the hospital telling me my oesphagus is very inflamed I was told at my endoscopy I had Barretts but this letter doesn't mention it I.m confused does inflammation mean I have Barretts or not does anyone know ?
My letter was also worded very strangely but it did have Barrett's in parentheses on mine. Dies it say you have any cell changes and does it mention dysplasia?
After the endoscope I was told I had Barretts and an ulcer they also took a lot of biopsies . Now this letter has arrived five weeks later that says the biopsies are benign there is no mention of an ulcer it just says inflammation so I,m confused. I have to go back in n February for another endoscope and hoping I can get some answers .
Another one so soon? I'm guessing that's to follow up the ulcer. When did you receive the letter??
Only received the letter today I was told at the first endoscope I would need another to check on if the ulcer has healed.
I see hopefully you get answers at that appointment.
Simply put: you had inflammation. The inflammation made it look like you had certain cell types too high in your esophagus. So they suspected Barrett’s. In fact, in some cases, this was enough to call it Barrett’s.
But here’s the ting: turns out that the only reason people care about Barrett’s is because of its association with an increased chance of cancer. And that only increases when the new cells are intestinal metaplasia. That is, when there’s goblet cells, which they can only see through a microsope.
Your biopsies probably didn’t show any goblet cells, so the metaplasia wasn’t intestinal.
Intestinal metaplasia = Barrett’s.
No intestinal metaplasia = No Barrett’s.
Your follow up may show something different, or it may not. Chances are they’ll re-biopsy again, but it sounds like you’re probably in the clear.