Dyspepsia and chronic gastritis.

The histological pattern of fundic and antral mucosa was evaluated in endoscopically bioptic material obtained from 32 dyspeptic patients in the absence of circumscribed lesions of the stomach, duodenum, hepato-biliary area and pancreas, and in 30 asymptomatic controls. The data obtained failed to reveal any significant differences between the dyspeptic patients and the asymptomatic control group as regards the presence of chronic inflammatory alterations of the fundic or antral mucosa. Furthermore, the present findings reconfirmed the well-known progression with age, of the gastric inflammatory damage both in the antral and fundic area in the two groups considered without evidence of significant differences between them. Therefore, in conclusion dyspepsia "sine materia" does not have a histological pattern of chronic gastritis either of the fundus or of the antrum as its substrate.