Role of endoscopy in suspicion of atrophic gastritis with and without intestinal metaplasia in comparison to histopathology

Background and study aims: Atrophic gastritis (AG) and intestinal metaplasia (IM) are established premalignant gastric lesions. Many studies documented a poor correlation between esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and histopathological (HP) findings of precancerous gastric lesions. The aim was to bridge the gap between endoscopy and HP in detection of chronic gastritis, AG and IM.

Patients and methods: a prospective single-center study involved 150 patients with endoscopic criteria of gastric lesions with upper gastrointestinal symptoms referred for upper GI endoscopy met the endoscopic criteria and classified according to HP of biopsies from targeted gastric lesions into chronic gastritis (GI), AG(GII) or IM(GIII). We correlated the endoscopic criteria of the 3 groups with the HP results.

Results: (73males & 75 females) with ages ranged17-75 years and mean± SD was 41.96 ± 15.95. GI, GII &GIII were [42 patients (28%),82 patients (54.7%) and 26 patients (17.3%)], respectively. Diffuse gastric mottling was more common in GI (74.3%, P<0.001), visible submucosal vessels, gastric atrophy predominated in GII (75.6, 82.3 & 73.1% (P 0.005,0.4 & <0.01)), respectively. Whitish raised lesions were more specific in GIII (85.7%) (P<0.001). The sensitivity and specificity of endoscopic suspicion of chronic gastritis were (86&88% in GI), (87&85% in GII) and (54% &100% in GIII) (p-0.001). The logistic regression model for risk factors was χ2= 25.74 and 49.32, p < 0.001.

Conclusion: Conventional endoscopy has high sensitivity and specificity for suspicion of chronic gastritis and AG, but low sensitivity and very high specificity for IM. Targeted biopsies may be valuable with image enhanced techniques.

Keywords: endoscopy, atrophic gastritis, histopathology, intestinal metaplasia.