[Gastritis - a risk factor in carcinogenesis; epidemiological and morphological findings (author's transl)].

A comparison was made between 239 gastric biopsies from persons in Columbia, district of Nariño, not suffering from carcinoma of the stomach and an equal number of biopsies from a german control group matched for age and sex. Carcinoma risk in columbian population is about four fold as high as in german people (150 resp. 40/100,000). 46% of the columbian and 23% of the german group had gastritis of the antrum with atrophic changes; its incidence is independent of age. This type of gastritis is characterized by significantly more areas of necrotic epithelial lesions in the glandular neck region, proliferation and dysplasia of neck cells, as well as by intestinal metaplasia. This active and progredient type of gastritis may be perceived as a preliminary stage of the intestinal ("epidemiological") type of gastric carcinoma. This is the predominant type of carcinoma in Germany as well. Prospective studies are necessary to show, if patients with increased risk of stomach carcinoma can be identified by diagnosing this type of gastritis.