ENDOSCOPICAL FOLLOW UP OF ATYPICAL EPITHELIAL LESIONS OF THE STOMACH

Abstract

15, 487 upper gastrointestinal endoscopic examinations were performed in 6, 529 patients. Of the patients 36 lesions (32 patients) were histologically diagnosed as gastric atypical epithelium by the endoscopic biopsied specimens. The changes of endoscopic finding in 13 lesions (11 patients) with a follow-up period from 3 months to 3 years were compared with those in 13 lesions (12 patients) more than 3 years. There were some changes on the surface and shape in the more than 3 years' group but no evidence of remarkable changes in the less than 3 years' group. No remarkable change of color is seen in the both groups (Table 1). Spontaneous detachment was found in one patient of the less than 3 years' group. Figure 1 showed an endoscopic view of this case. Histological changes of the biopsied specimens revealed neither evidence of remarkable changes nor malignant transformation in both groups of 12 lesions (10 patients) of the less than 3 years' group and 8 lesions of the (7 patients) more than 3 years' group (Table 2). In this study, we suspected that gastric atypical epithelium showed relatively slow growth and had the low malignant potential.