مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Prevalence of gastric cancer precursor lesions in patients with dyspepsia

Abstract :

Objectives: In Southeastern cities of Turkey, high prevalences of Helicobacter pylori infection and gastric cancer are seen. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of the precancerous gastric lesions in patients with dyspeptic symptoms who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy in Adıyaman State Hospital. Materials and methods: We analyzed gastric biopsies taken from corpus and antrum of 234 consecutive patients who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy between January 2009 and May 2009. According to Sydney system, chronic gastritis, gastric atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia were diagnosed by histological examination. Results: The mean age of patients was 46±15 (16- 82) years. Helicobacter pylori infection was seen in 66.7% of patients. Normal mucosa, chronic gastritis, gastric atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia were diagnosed in 2.7%, 78.6%, 3.4%, 11.5% and 3.8% of gastric biopsy specimens, respectively. Helicobacter pylori infected patients showed a significantly higher prevalence of intestinal metaplasia compared with that of the non infected subjects (9.8% vs 1.7% p=0.021). Although prevalence of gastric atrophy and dysplasia were higher among Helicobacter pylori infected patients, the difference did not reached to a statistically significant level (3.0% vs 0.4% p=0.19 and 3.0% vs 0.8% p=0.37 respectively). Conclusion: Our findings suggested that the prevalence of gastric precancerous lesions such as gastric atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia and Helicobacter pylori infection were high in dyspeptic patients. This may be related to actual high incidence of gastric cancer in southeastern region of Turkey.