Intestinal meiaplasia of the stomach is studied gastroscopically by vital staining with orally administering the capsule which contains 0.05 gm methylene blue. Fine structure of intestinal metaplastic epithelium and atypical epithelium are studied by investigating dissecting-microscopic apperance of the biopsy specimen after vital staining by methylene blue. Distribution and degree of intestinal metaplasia are classified in this study, as seen Fig. 3. and Fig. 4. Intestinal metaplasia can be diagnosed accurately as many former studies about gastrectomy specimen or biopsy specimen. More accurately, intestinal metaplasia could be diagnosed by examining density and staining degree of papillae, as seen in Fig. 6. According to our classification of intestinal metaplasia, the differentiation early gastric cancer relates to that of intestinal metaplasia (Fig. 5). Atypical epithelium and elevated early gastric cancer exsist within moderately or more well differentiated in-testinal metaplasia. Furthermore, after examining density and staining degree of papillae, we find atypical epithelium in the process of the differentiation of intestinal metaplasia (Fig. 6).
