[Gastric mucosal dysplasias: what is their clinical significance (author's transl)].

Using criteria of proliferation kinetics, karyometry, histology and histochemistry, the attempt at a definition of normal and dysplastic surface epithelium of the gastric mucosa is made. Instead of using such terms as surface carcinoma, intra-epithelial carcinoma and carcinoma-in-situ, the term dysplasia III of the surface epithelium is suggested, because serial biopsies of gastric mucosa over periods ranging from one month to two years have demonstrated reversibility or persistence of such changes without transition into early carcinoma. Results of such studies in 8 262 patients demonstrate that even proliferation-kinetic, karyometric and histochemical methods do not make it possible to judge from single tests the prospective potency of certain changes of the gastric surface mucosa as "precancerous" or even "intra-epithelial carcinoma".