Most people don’t associate chronic heartburn with esophageal cancer, and yet, if it goes unchecked, chronic heartburn can lead to Barrett's esophagus, a precancerous condition of the esophagus.

The good news is that due to recent medical advances in detection, there’s a procedure that can help more accurately identify pre-cancer cells. It’s called WATS^3D, a breakthrough endoscopic procedure that helps your doctor detect pre-cancerous cells so they can be removed before they can turn into esophageal cancer.

Benefits of the WATS^3D  method over traditional tissue sampling is sampling of a much greater amount of tissue that is at-risk for turning into cancer as well as samples from deeper layers of the esophageal lining.

During an upper endoscopy or EGD, your doctor will use a thin scope to look inside the upper digestive tract and will take tissue samples of the impacted area. In addition to the conventional forceps sample collection, a specially designed brush instrument will collect a sample from a broader area of the esophagus.

Both samples are sent to a laboratory. This WATS^3D specimen is sent to the laboratory for advanced computer analysis that uses artificial intelligence and proprietary 3-D imaging to help pathologists identify pre-cancer cells with greater accuracy and consistency.

This procedure is performed at  HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay and HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan. The procedure lasts about 30 minutes. It will take approximately 10 days to get the results back from both biopsies. Your doctor will call you with the results.