Gastrointestinal epithelial dysplasia: detection with new endoscopic techniques.

Endoscopic detection of dysplasia currently requires either the presence of a visible lesion (such as a polyp) or the serendipitous sampling of a dysplastic focus during "blind" surveillance biopsies. To accurately and efficiently examine large areas of mucosa during surveillance endoscopy, new methods are required to render dysplasia visible. Spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography are two technologies under active investigation for this purpose. This review presents the basic concepts behind these technologies and discusses their utility in the detection of gastrointestinal dysplasia.