[Intestinal metaplasia of the stomach. Frequency in a study of endoscopic biopsies]

The histologic sections of gastric endoscopic biopsies performed during a 4 years period were reexamined. Those cases in which the whole mucosa was not included in the biopsy and those of cancer or peptic ulcer in which another biopsy of normal mucosa outside of the lesion was not obtained, were ruled out. The presence of intestinal metaplasia (IM) and gastritis was investigated. Gastritis was classified according to Whitehead. No attempt was made to grade IM. The relationship of the frequency of IM with age, severity of gastritis, cancer, peptic ulcer and different areas of the stomach was studied. Cases without cancer or peptic ulcer were used as controls. IM was present in 67 (32.1%) out of 209 cases that were reviewed. A significant difference in the frequency of IM was found between those cases below 40 years and those with 41 or more. The difference was not significant when the following decades were considered (tables 1, 2 and 3). Either was there any significant difference of frequency between sexes. According to our criteria for the selection of cases only 16 carcinomas were included in this series. IM was observed in 50% of the cases. Fifteen patients had more than 50 years. There was a considerable difference in the percentage of IM between this group and that of the controls with 50 or more years, nevertheless this difference was not significant, probably because of the small number of cases, (table 6). IM was found in 48.8% of 43 cases with peptic ulcer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)