Chronic atrophic gastritis: focus on diagnosis

Abstract

Currently, chronic atrophic gastritis is a risk factor for the development of gastric cancer. Data on the prevalence of chronic atrophic gastritis in Russia and the world are limited. Among the adult population of St. Petersburg aged 21 to 81 years, the prevalence of histologically verified chronic atrophic gastritis is 5.3%. Moreover, the chances of developing chronic atrophic gastritis in people over the age of 60 years compared to the group of 45–59 years are 2.5 times higher (95% confidence interval 1.5–4.1). Morphological verification of the Operative Link for Gastritis Assessment diagnosis is not carried out in clinical practice in most cases. However, this method remains the most reliable method for timely verification of chronic atrophic gastritis, including chronic atrophic gastritis of mixed origin (autoimmune gastritis and Helicobacter pylori-associated gastritis), especially in the case of a seronegative variant of autoimmune gastritis. Also, in addition to the heterogeneity of epidemiological data on chronic atrophic gastritis, there is disagreement about how to confirm its etiology as well as about the correlation of serological markers of atrophy and histological stage.