Incidence and evolutive tendency of intestinal metaplasia in chronic gastritis.

The histologic examination of 556 gastric biopsies performed in patients with chronic gastritis, revealed the presence of intestinal metaplasia in 81 cases (14.5%). This was correlated with the evolutive stage of gastritis, the maximum incidence being observed in the case of gastric atrophy (24.7%). The iterative examination of the patients with intestinal metaplasia, allowed the determination of its evolutive tendency. After an average period of 5 years, the occurrence of gastric malignoma was observed in 5 cases (6.3%) thus confirming the oncogenic risk of intestinal metaplasia and justifying the careful "surveillance" of these cases.