Intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia in gastric ulcer and its tissue repair.

The aim of this work was to study the relationship between intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia in gastric ulcers and their tissue repair in 223 patients with 236 gastric ulcers found endoscopically and treated with H2 blockers. The average duration of follow-up for the men was 32.4 months (range, 12-87 months) and for the women 42.5 months (range, 12-88 months). In 112 patients (50.2%) with 118 gastric ulcers, intestinal metaplasia in the different types was observed. The data obtained allow us to state that severe dysplasia and gastric cancer can occur only in a restricted number of patients with intestinal metaplasia in gastric ulcers and/or gastric ulcer tissue repair (two in our study, more than 60 yr old), and only in the forms with sulphomucins, more precisely type III. In relation to the fact that gastric ulcers rarely become carcinoma, the intestinal metaplasia frequently observed should not be considered "precancerous", as such, but could become so in the presence of several factors which, excluding age, did not emerge from our study.