Endoscopic Quality Indicators for Esophagogastroduodenoscopy in Gastric Cancer Screening

Background: Quality indicators of screening esophagogastroduodenoscopy are essential to improve the detection rate of gastric cancer. However, a reliable, practical indicator of the performance of endoscopists in screening esophagogastroduodenoscopy has not yet been identified.

Aims: We aimed to identify quality indicators of esophagogastroduodenoscopy for the detection of early gastric neoplasms, including gastric dysplasia and early gastric cancer, focusing on the endoscopic findings.

Methods: The records of 54,889 individuals who underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy for gastric cancer screening at the Yonsei University Severance Hospital Health Promotion Center, Seoul, Korea, between February 2006 and July 2013 were analyzed. The detection rates for various gastric lesions including early gastric neoplasms were analyzed for each endoscopist.

Results: Gastric dysplasia, early gastric cancer, and advanced gastric cancer were detected in 97 (0.18 %), 54 (0.10 %), and 21 (0.04 %) of 54,889 individuals, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that the detection rates of gastric subepithelial lesions and gastric diverticuli were independent factors associated with the detection rate of early gastric neoplasms (regression coefficients of 0.096 and 0.532, respectively). A quality score formula was deduced using these regression coefficients to predict the ability of an endoscopist to detect early gastric neoplasms. A trend test confirmed that the group of endoscopists with a higher quality score showed a significantly higher rate of early gastric neoplasm detection (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: The detection rates of gastric subepithelial lesions and gastric diverticuli are well correlated with that of early gastric neoplasms. In addition, the proposed quality scoring system could be a good quality indicator for the detection of early gastric neoplasms.