Review article: what have we learnt from gastric biopsy?

Pathologists would claim that the most reliable information obtained on gastric diseases is pathology-based. This manuscript summarizes the four major biopsy-based contributions to the current knowledge of non-neoplastic gastric diseases: (i) the in vivo definition of gastritis; (ii) the recognition of the clinicopathological patterns of gastritis; (iii) the morphological links between gastritis and stomach cancer; and finally (iv) the recent information on the possible reversibility of early or advanced precancerous gastric lesions.