ABSTRACT
Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the value of narrow band imaging (NBI) in evaluating the short-term effect of radiotherapy on esophageal carcinoma.Methods This study included 86 patients with esophageal squamous carcinoma treated in the Department of Oncology of Jiangyin People's Hospital from December 2013 to December 2016. All the patients underwent NBI, barium meal examination (BME) and CT scanning before and after radiotherapy. We compared the lesion contour sharpness shown by conventional endoscopy with that by NBI, analyzed the consistency between the two standards in evaluating the short-term effect of radiotherapy, and assessed the influence of NBI-based lesion grades on the prognosis of esophageal carcinoma, followed by a multivariate regression analysis of the prognostic factors with a Cox model.Results The total score on the lesion contour sharpness by NBI was significantly higher than that by conventional endoscopy (249 vs 195, P<0.05), and a significant consistency was found between the two standards in evaluating the short-term effect of radiotherapy (Kappa=0.772, P=0.000). Both the 3-year overall survival and 3-year progress-free survival rates were remarkably higher in the patients with NBI-based grades Ⅲ+Ⅳ than in those with grades Ⅰ+Ⅱ lesion (71.9% vs 37.5%, P<0.05; 58.1% vs 24.9%, P<0.05). Clinical stages (HR=1.63, 95% CI: 1.14-2.66) and NBI-based lesion grades (HR=1.42, 95% CI: 1.13-1.72) were independent prognostic factors for both the 3-year overall survival (P<0.05) and 3-year progress-free survival (P<0.05) of the esophageal carcinoma patients.Conclusion NBI presents a higher lesion contour sharpness of esophageal carcinoma than conventional endoscopy, NBI-based lesion grading has a significant value in the prognosis of esophageal carcinoma, and NBI combined with BME and CT can effectively evaluate the short-term effect of radiotherapy on the malignancy.