Prevalence and significance of reflux esophagitis: comparative study on the subjects at high and low-incidence areas for esophageal cancer in Henan

Aim: To characterize the prevalence and the significance of reflux esophagitis (RE) in the subjects from the high and low incidence areas for esophageal cancer (EC) in Henan, China. Methods: Endoscopic examination and biopsy and histopathology through mass survery were performed on 1 802 subjects from Linzhou, the high incidence area for EC and 296 subjects from Fanxian, a low incidence area for EC in Henan. All the biopsy specimens were fixed with alcohol, embedded with paraffin and cut at 5μm for histopathological diagnosis. Results: The present studies showed that RE from the subjects in Linzhou was not uncommon (83/1802, 5%) and the incidence for RE in high incidence area was significantly higher than that in Fanxian, the low incidence area (2/296, 1%, P 0.0001). The histopathological analysis on the biopsies from the cases with ( n =76) and without ( n =760) RE showed that the detection rate for basal cell hyperplasia (BCH) in the cases with RE (35/76, 46%) was higher than in those without RE (194/760,26%).Conclusion: The present results showed that RE is not uncommon,which is closely related with esophageal epithelial lesions, and is higher in high incidence area than that in low incidence area,suggesting that RE may be an important risk factor for esophageal carcinogenesis.