Topography of chronic active gastritis in Helicobacter pylori-positive Asian populations: age-, gender-, and endoscopic diagnosis-matched study

Background

The incidence and mortality of gastric cancer is high among Japanese and Chinese populations but extremely low in Thailand and low in Vietnam. The aim of this study was to compare the degree of corpus-predominant gastritis, which is considered to be one of risk factors of gastric cancer, in Helicobacter pylori-positive Asian adult populations.

Methods

H. pylori-positive Chinese (Beijing and Fuzhou), Thai, and Vietnamese patients were paired with Japanese patients by age, gender, and endoscopic diagnosis to compare the ratio of corpus gastritis to antrum gastritis (C/A ratio) (105, 85, 195, and 154 pairs, respectively).

Results

The Japanese C/A ratio was significantly higher than that in other groups. Corpus-predominant gastritis (C/A ratio > 1.00) was characteristic in aged Japanese and Chinese (Fuzhou), but Chinese (Beijing), Thai, and Vietnamese were antrum predominant (C/A ratio < 1.00) in every age group except for the Vietnamese over-70 group. There was a similarity between degree of H. pylori colonization and neutrophil activity score.

Conclusions

Corpus-predominant gastritis was found in aged Japanese and Chinese (Fuzhou) and antrum-predominant gastritis was found in Chinese (Beijing), Thai, and Vietnamese patients. These results correlate with the low incidence of gastric cancer in Thai and Vietnamese populations.