Chronic Gastritis in Japanese With Reference to High Incidence of Gastric Carcinoma2

Abstract

A total of 260 apparently healthy stomachs obtained at autopsy in Japan (with high gastric-cancer risk) were compared histologically with 350 equivalent stomachs from the United States (with low gastric-cancer risk) in the frequency and severity of chronic gastritic changes. Stomachs resected for gastric carcinoma or gastric or duodenal ulcer were examined also for comparison. In apparently healthy stomachs, gastritic changes of the mucosa, particularly of the antrum, were strikingly more prevalent in Japanese than in American whites. Gastritis was, in general, more frequent in the stomachs resected for gastric or duodenal lesions than in the stomachs from the autopsy series. But even in those surgical specimens there was an appreciable difference in the incidence of parenchymal changes between both population groups. The findings suggested a positive statistical correlation between the incidence of chronic gastritis and the rate of death from gastric cancer as viewed from the geographical pathologic standpoint.