Only the chronic atrophic gastritis patients showed some phosphatidylglycerol.

Histological examination confirmed a severe chronic atrophic gastritis.

Lysolecithin was the smallest component in the duodenal ulcer and chronic atrophic gastritis groups.

The phosphatidylethanolamine value was higher in duodenal ulcer and lower in chronic atrophic gastritis compared with the control group.

Chronic atrophic gastritis.

Some authors have described an incidence of chronic atrophic gastritis in more than 65% of all cases of Sjögren's syndrome.

This phlegmonous gastritis evolved later into a chronic atrophic gastritis, which has frequently been reported as a symptom of Sjögren's syndrome.

Chronic atrophic gastritis and chronic active gastritis were graded as mild, moderate and severe.

In chronic atrophic gastritis there was an appreciable amount of phosphatidylglycerol not present in patients with duodenal ulcer or in the control group.

The widest variations were seen in chronic atrophic gastritis: a lysolecithin decrease and a phosphatidylcholine increase much greater than in duodenal ulcer.

Phosphatidylglycerol was detectable in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis, but not in controls or in patients with duodenal ulcer.

Similar findings have also been reported in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis, Which suggests that they have been infected with H pylori at some point in their lives.

Risk factors for gastric cancer include the presence of precursor conditions such as chronic atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia, pernicious anemia, and gastric adenomatous polyps.

Figs 4 and 5 show the positive or negative percentage variation of absolute gastric phospholipid values in the duodenal ulcer and chronic atrophic gastritis patient groups v controls.

Data of independent groups (healthy controls, patients with duodenal ulcer, patients with chronic atrophic gastritis) were compared using analysis of variance to one channel and Scheffé multiple range tests.

The phospholipid composition of gastric mucosa from endoscopic biopsy specimens in 28 subjects (eight healthy controls, 12 patients with duodenal ulcer, and 8 with chronic atrophic gastritis) was studied.

There was a small but significant increase in phosphatidylethanolamine in duodenal ulcer patients compared with controls, whereas the lipid component was consistently and significantly lower in chronic atrophic gastritis patients.

As a result of endoscopical and histological tests, eight subjects were classified normal (healthy controls with functional dyspepsia), 12 had duodenal ulcer disease, and the remaining eight had chronic atrophic gastritis.

In their study of patients with peptic ulcer, Schmitz and Renooij report the presence of cardiolipin in quantities comparable with the phosphatidylglycerol values we obtained in chronic atrophic gastritis.

The reduced LL/PC ratio and the increased PC/PE ratio in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis and duodenal ulcer is difficult to interpret in functional terms.

It is well known that other groups of hypochlorhydric patients - for example, after partial gastrectomy or vagotomy; in chronic atrophic gastritis; in pernicious anaemia - have an increased incidence of gastric cancer.

The basic histopathological phenomenon in pernicious anaemia is severe chronic atrophic gastritis in the proximal acid producing gastric mucosa (type A chronic atrophic gastritis).

The patients with chronic atrophic gastritis in our study had little or no inflammatory infiltrate, whereas all those with duodenal ulcer had a variable amount of inflammatory infiltrate in the gastric antrum.

As for possible premalignant changes, all the patients had severe chronic atrophic gastritis in corpus biopsy specimens consistent with the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia, and four patients had slight atrophic changes in antral specimens.

But in terms of general premalignant changes, almost all the patients with chronic atrophic gastritis had intestinal metaplasia, and the mild dysplastic changes in random biopsy specimens in this study did not coincide with the observed cancers.