Interpretation of Benign Gastric Mucosal Lesions Using Narrow-Band Imaging

The major drawback of conventional white light endoscopy (WLE) is that it lacks accuracy in diagnosis and differentiation of various benign and premalignant mucosal gastrointestinal lesions. To overcome this, image-enhanced endoscopy techniques, which provide high-definition images with good resolution and contrast enhancement, have been developed. One such technique is narrow-band imaging (NBI). NBI functions by filtering the illumination light. The red component of the standard red, green, and blue filters is rejected and the selected bandwidth of the blue and green light is transmitted. The present review highlights the role of NBI in diagnosis of benign gastric lesions like atrophic gastritis, Helicobacter pylori–related gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, and other rarer conditions. NBI is a simple procedure which does not require any additional equipment and does not have a long learning curve. Use of NBI in daily practice is likely to improve detection of mucosal abnormalities.