Dear Colleagues,

Premalignant diseases such as Barrett's esophagus and inflammatory bowel diseases may significantly increase the risk of esophageal and colon cancer development, respectively. Despite a known the precancerous condition, the principles of monitoring and preventing the development of esophageal and colon cancer is not easy to apply in the clinical practice. The existing diagnostic methods are not fully adequate to assess the risk of neoplastic transformation. Therefore, new molecular markers that are useful in the diagnosis and finding of patients with an increased risk of malignant transformation are needed. Such studies aim to find a molecular marker of changes predisposing to cancer that could help identify patients with Barrett's esophagus and inflammatory bowel diseases with an increased risk of carcinogenesis. Such a marker could be used to select patients who would benefit most from the surveillance programs. The others could avoid repeating endoscopy. Moreover, the most exposed group of patients would be the target of the intensive pharmacological therapy, chemoprevention and endoscopic treatment. Finally, changes at the molecular level that occur prior to the step we could detect dysplasia in histopathological examination, can help improve our ability to predict cancer progression.

For this Special Issue we invite Researchers to contribute with original articles and reviews on all aspects related to gastrointestinal diseases including, but not limited to gastroesophageal reflux disease, Barrett's esophagus, esophageal adenocarcinoma and inflammatory bowel diseases as well as colorectal cancer.

Dr. Damian Jacenik
Dr. Anna Mokrowiecka
Guest Editors

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• gastroesophageal reflux disease
• Barrett's esophagus
• esophageal adenocarcinoma
• inflammatory bowel diseases
• colorectal cancer