The Clinical Relevance of Endoscopic and Histologic Inflammation of Gastroduodenal Mucosa in Dyspepsia of Unknown Origin

Two hundred and ten patients were defined as having dyspepsia of unknown origin. At endoscopy 11% had body gastritis, 46% antral gastritis, and 19% bulbitis (two-thirds combined with antral gastritis). Histologically, 22% had chronic corpus gastritis (79% superficial, 21% atrophic), which was combined with chronic antral gastritis in 84%, 33% had chronic antral gastritis (82% superficial, 18% atrophic); and 14% had duodenitis, which was combined with antral gastritis in 65%. Polymorphonuclear leukocytes were found in specimens from the body mucosa in 6%, from the antral mucosa in 1370, and from the duodenal cap in 4%. The endosopic findings correlated significantly with the histologic findings in the duodenal bulb (kappa = 0.33) but not in the stomach. The frequency of endoscopic antral gastritis and the frequency of histologic chronic body and antral gastritis increased with age. Endoscopic bulbitis and histologic duodenitis and gastric metaplasia were commoner in men than in women. Peak acid output was ...