Chronic erosions of the antral mucosa: a sequela of Helicobacter pylori-induced gastritis.

The etiopathogenesis of chronic erosions of the antral mucosa still remains to be clarified. In order to investigate the question as to whether chronic erosions might be a sequela of Helicobacter pylori-induced gastritis, we submitted biopsy material obtained from 250 patients with chronic erosions of the antral mucosa to a histological evaluation. The grading of Helicobacter pylori colonisation, and gastritis was compared with the results of histological evaluation of the biopsy material obtained from 1,196 patients with Helicobacter pylori gastritis, but no lesions of the gastric mucosa. The results of a histological analysis showed that Helicobacter pylori gastritis was present in 99.1 percent of the patients with chronic erosions of the antral mucosa. A comparison of the histological findings in patients with no lesions of the gastric mucosa revealed, that the density of Helicobacter pylori colonization, the severity of the antral gastritis together with its activity were statistically significantly more pronounced (p < 0.001) in patients with chronic erosions. In contrast, no differences in the morphological parameters were seen in the case of corpus mucosa. On the basis of these results, we conclude that chronic erosions of the antral mucosa represent a sequela of Helicobacter pylori gastritis, and that these Helicobacter pylori-induced chronic erosions should, in future, be differentiated from other erosions.