[Frequency and histopathologic features of chronic gastritis in 300 patients without endoscopic lesions]

Three gastric mucosal biopsies were obtained from 300 patients showing a normal upper digestive tract endoscopy. Histologically, in 9% of the patients the biopsies were normal: in 87%, showed a common-type chronic gastritis, and in 4% showed a reactive (chemical or reflux-type) gastritis. Helicobacter pylori was present in 25.9% of the patients without gastritis, in 33.3% of the patients with reactive gastritis, and in 87.7% of those with common-type gastritis. In 19.9% of the patients with common-type chronic gastritis there was intestinal metaplasia, consisting of type I metaplasia in 14.1%, type II in 3.1% and type III metaplasia in 2.3%. The association of type III intestinal metaplasia with the other forms of metaplasia, its lower frequency and its tendency to be present in older patients supports the hypothesis that type III incomplete colonic metaplasia represents a more advanced stage than complete and incomplete small bowed metaplasia of the gastric mucosa.