Whether or not the gastric mucosa undergoes significant changes in normal aging subjects is still open to debate. In 51 subjects undergoing endoscopy and lacking any significant endoscopic or histologic modification we evaluated mucosal thickness, gland number, numbers of parietal, chief and mucous cells at the fundus and of mucopeptic cells at the antrum, with a morphometric method, subgrouping the patients according to their age class. Our findings demonstrate that the number of parietal cells tends to increase with age and, on the other hand, the number of mucous cells is reduced in elderly subjects (p < 0.05). When considering the parietal-to-mucous cell ratio, this is significantly increased (p = 0.0005) with age. Acid secretion being an offensive factor and mucus a fundamental component of the gastric mucosal barrier, these findings suggest an increased susceptibility of the gastric mucosa to damage in the elderly.

Over the last 30 years, Burn-out Syndrome has been mainly matched to psychological discomfort among the staff in Oncology Departments, therefore, it has been considered as the unique issue to be diagnosed, treated, and prevented. Our study is aimed to evaluate the relation between psychological states and traits with different Male/Female (M/F) ratio was 18/54. Median age was 37 years old (range from 20 years old to 62 years old). We did not show a significant correlation between depression and operators' age, years of work, professional role, and relational decline, while a statistically significant association was observed between depression and professional ineffectiveness (p=0.042), disillusion (p=0.0003), and psychophysical exhaustion (p = 0.00001). According to STAXI 2, 15% of the personnel had a high expression of aggressiveness while 10% was over-controlled.Aggressiveness was statistically related to depression (p = 0.001), disillusion (p = 0.009), and psychophysical exhaustion (p = 0.012). This study showed that aggressiveness and depression play a crucial role in psychological discomfort in an Oncology Department operators. Therefore, they should be taken into account together with burn-out when performing screening procedures for the psychological discomfort in the same setting.

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