Serological parameters in assessment of degree of gastritis in healthy volunteers.

This study was undertaken in healthy volunteers to determine the relation between serum levels of pepsinogen A, pepsinogen C, pepsinogen A:C ratio, and gastrin on the one hand and histology of the gastric mucosa on the other. The grade of gastritis was scored separately for antral and fundic mucosa by three different classifications: Whitehead, activity, and the Sydney score. Among 48 healthy volunteers studied, 17 were found to have gastritis according to the criteria of Whitehead. Fourteen of these 17 subjects with gastritis had H. pylori in gastric biopsies. In all 48 subjects serum pepsinogen A (r = 0.298-0.506; P < 0.01-P < 0.05), pepsinogen A:C ratio (r between -0.377 and -0.495; P < 0.001-P < 0.05) and gastrin (r = 0.38-0.695; P = 0.007-P < 0.01) were significantly correlated to the severity of both antral and body gastritis as assessed by all three classifications. In contrast, there was no significant correlation between serum pepsinogen C and any of the gastritis scores. When the 17 subjects with gastritis were analyzed separately, there were no correlations between the parameters studied and gastritis of the antrum. Regarding the corpus mucosa, serum PgA correlated significantly with the activity score (r = 0.520; P = 0.03), weakly with the Sydney score (r = 0.465; P = 0.06), but not with the Whitehead score. Serum PgC correlated with the Whitehead (r = 0.555; P = 0.02) and Sydney score (r = 0.523; P = 0.03), but only weakly with the activity score (r = 0.441; P = 0.08).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)