22 The position of mucosal breaks in relation to the esophageal longitudinal folds was also evaluated in a same fashion as the SSBE. The presence or absence of a hiatus hernia,23 and gastric mucosal atrophy24 was also investigated endoscopically. The GIF-H260, H260Z, and Q260J endoscopes (Olympus Medical Systems Co., Tokyo, Japan) were used and all endoscopic examinations were done by well-trained, experienced

endoscopists. The endoscopic diagnosis was established by consensus of two or three (T.Y., N.I., and Y.A.). The protocols of these studies were prepared according to the Declaration of Helsinki and written informed consent was given by all participants. All X-396 datasheet data are expressed as the mean ± SE unless otherwise indicated. The categorical data were analyzed by χ2-test or Student’s t-test and compared. Statistical analysis of the comparative study for each group of endoscopic identification using a different modality was performed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test only when the Friedman test showed significant differences. P-values less than 0.05 were considered to be significant. All statistical analyses were performed using Statistical Analysis Software (IBM SPSS Statistics 18, SPSS Japan Inc., Tokyo, R788 Japan). The 100 enrolled patients consisted of 54 men and 46 women with a mean age of 70.8 ± 10.7

(mean ± SD) years. All BE were SSBE. It was possible to detect squamous islands in 48% (48/100), 71% (71/100), and 75% (75/100) of patients by WL, NBI, and iodine chromoendoscopy, respectively. The rate of detecting squamous islands with WL was significantly lower than with NBI or iodine chromoendoscopy (Fig. 3a). The mean number of identified squamous islands in an individual case was 0.55 ± 0.06, 1.02 ± 0.09, and 1.76 ± 0.18 by WL, NBI, and iodine chromoendoscopy, respectively (Fig. 3b). There were statistically significant differences among the three endoscopic procedures for the number of identified squamous islands (P < 0.001). The 100 enrolled patients consisted of 54 men and 46 women with a mean age of 72.4 ± 6.91 (mean ± SD) years. Their clinical characteristics are shown

in Table 1. The mean circumferential (C) and maximum (M) lengths of the SSBE were 0.20 ± 0.381, and 1.14 ± 0.409 cm, respectively. Tongue-like SSBE was predominantly found on the ridge of 上海皓元 mucosal folds (71%), and half of the cases were found on the right anterior wall of the esophagus (Fig. 4). There were no statistically significant differences in the presence or absence of RE, hiatus hernia, type of gastric mucosal atrophy, and the length of SSBE between tongue-like SSBEs on the ridge of mucosal folds and those in the valleys (Table 1). The 100 enrolled patients consisted of 68 men and 32 women with a mean age of 69.0 ± 11.8 (mean ± SD) years. Their clinical characteristics are shown in Table 2. The RE group comprised 62 patients with grade A and 38 with grade B.