Erosion: a correlative endoscopic histopathologic multicenter study.

This multicenter study was conducted in 6 gastroenterology units, two each in Germany and Italy and one each in Sweden and Czechoslovakia. The diagnosis of erosion was made on endoscopic examination of 166 patients presenting with symptoms of upper gastrointestinal disease. Only 78 out of 172 (42%) lesions diagnosed endoscopically as gastroduodenal erosions were confirmed as such histologically. The discrepancy between the endoscopic and histologic diagnosis varied from one centre to another, and ranged from 15 to 100%. The lack of agreement between the endoscopic and morphologic diagnosis in 94 biopsies (55%) is attributed to such histopathological changes as: foci of acute gastritis with or without mucopurulent surface exudate, small islands of intestinal metaplasia, subepithelial stromal capillary hyperemia, pseudovillous formations of the surface epithelium, microcarcinoid tumor and lipid islands. It is recommended that the term erosion should be reserved for histologically verified lesions, and the need for a descriptive endoscopic terminology is emphasized.