Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 14, 2016; 22(14): 3845-3851
Published online Apr 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i14.3845
Autofluorescence imaging endoscopy can distinguish non-erosive reflux disease from functional heartburn: A pilot study
Xi Luo, Xiao-Xu Guo, Wei-Feng Wang, Li-Hua Peng, Yun-Sheng Yang, Noriya Uedo
Xi Luo, Xiao-Xu Guo, Wei-Feng Wang, Li-Hua Peng, Yun-Sheng Yang, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Noriya Uedo, Department of Gastrointestinal Oncology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Osaka 537-8511, Japan
Author contributions: Luo X and Guo XX contributed equally to this work. Luo X, Guo XX, Wang WF and Peng LH performed the research; Luo X and Guo XX analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Wang WF designed the research; Yang YY and Uedo N critically reviewed the article.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Chinese PLA General Hospital Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Clinical trial registration statement: This study is registered at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=NCT01504971&Search=Search. The registration identification number is NCT01504971.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at wangwf301@hotmail.com.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Wei-Feng Wang, MD, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China. wangwf301@hotmail.com
Telephone: +86-13911952018 Fax: +86-10-68154653
Received: December 18, 2015
Peer-review started: December 22, 2015
First decision: January 13, 2016
Revised: February 9, 2016
Accepted: March 1, 2016
Article in press: March 2, 2016
Published online: April 14, 2016
Processing time: 101 Days and 22.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: To date, few efforts have been put on the application of autofluorescence imaging (AFI) endoscopy in patients with non-malignant conditions such as gastrointestinal reflux disease (GERD). Our data showed that endoscopic features on AFI can distinguish non-erosive reflux disease (NERD) from functional heartburn (FH). Its real-time characteristics and simple endoscopic criteria may enhance the use of AFI as a complementary tool in the differentiation of NERD and FH. We believe that these findings have important implications for future research on the application of AFI endoscopy in patients with GERD.