Gastric atrophy and xanthelasma are markers for predicting the development of early gastric cancer

The significance of gastric xanthelasma in relation to gastric cancer still remains unclear. We investigated whether gastric xanthelasma would be a useful marker for predicting the development of early gastric cancer. A total of 1823 patients who underwent a medical health checkup were enrolled. We examined the relationship between gastric xanthelasma and various clinical features, and in an endoscopic follow-up study investigated whether the presence of gastric xanthelasma was predictive of the development of early gastric cancer. In the initial endoscopic examination, gastric xanthelasma was detected in 107 (5.9 %) of the 1823 patients. The presence of gastric xanthelasma was significantly associated with age ≥65 years, male gender, open-type atrophy, and the presence of diabetes mellitus (DM) (p