The Northern Ireland Barrett’s Oesophagus Register, led by Professor Liam Murray, is one of the largest population-based registers of Barrett’s worldwide, and now includes information on >13,000 incident diagnoses in Northern Ireland since 1993.  Barrett’s oesophagus is a pre-cursor condition for the cancer, oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Key publications from this work have demonstrated that:

• Cancer progression risk in Barrett’s is lower than previously thought
• Barrett’s incidence rates have increased over and above those of endoscopy and oesophageal biopsy rates, indicating the rising incidence is not an artefact of changes in clinical practice 
• Tobacco smoking and having a Barrett’s ulcer are associated with a two-fold increased risk of progression from Barrett’s to oesophageal adenocarcinoma
• Only 7% of oesophageal adenocarcinoma patients actually had their Barrett’s diagnosed before their cancer
• As part of a multi-centre collaborative study, a panel of biomarkers may predict those at highest risk of progression from Barrett’s oesophagus to oesophageal adenocarcinoma 

Funding sources include: the UK Medical Research Council, Cancer Focus Northern Ireland (formerly the Ulster Cancer Foundation), NI HSC R&D Office, and Cancer Research UK.