[Gastric mucosa heterotopias in the upper gastrointestinal tract]

Heterotopic gastric mucosa does occur in the upper gastrointestinal tract more often than has been thought up to now. Such heterotopic gastric mucosa was systematically looked for in inpatients and outpatients. Islets of heterotopic gastric mucosa were found in 125 patients in the cervical esophagus, in most cases a few centimeters below the esophageal entrance, and in 135 patients such islets of polypoid morphology were found in the duodenal bulbus. Histological analysis done in biopsy specimens taken from the cervical esophagus showed mucosa typical for the gastric corpus in 62 cases, a mixture of glandular tissue from the fundus and mucoid glands in 32 patients, and exclusively mucoid glands in 3 cases. Just superficial mucosa tissue (pits, epithelium) were found in 10 cases, in 14 patients the islets of gastric mucosa were not hit during the biopsy procedure, in 4 cases no biopsy was done. Heterotopic gastric mucosa tissue in the bulbus usually had a diameter of a few millimeters and polypoid morphology; these lesions were located postpylorically in the bulbus and measured more than 5 mm in diameter only in 10 cases. Whereas duodenal heterotopic gastric mucosa probably has no clinical relevance hydrochloric acid producing islets of gastric mucosa in the cervical esophagus may give rise to peptic lesions.