Gastritis and cirrhosis--no association.

Abstract

Endoscopically sited gastric mucosal biopsies were taken from 98 patients with hepatic cirrhosis, and from 48 control patients. Nineteen patients with cirrhosis were found to have gastric ulcers, including eight with multiple erosions. In four of these eight, erosions were shown to arise in histologically normal mucosa. Among the remaining 79 patients with cirrhosis, the prevalence of chronic gastritis was not increased compared with controls of the same age-group. There was no increase in chronic gastritis in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis compared with either controls or patients with chronic active hepatitis and cirrhosis. The increased proneness of patients with cirrhosis to acute and chronic gastric mucosal lesions cannot be explained on the basis of an underlying chronic gastritis.

Pathologic basis of gastric mucosal adaptation to topical injury

“…3~ An improvement in histological gastritis was noted in 12 alcoholics following up to 9 months of abstinence from alcohol. 31 On the other hand, Brown et al 32 reported that chronic gastritis in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis was not higher than in controls. There is no doubt that alcohol abuse causes acute damage to the gastric mucosa, including hemorrhagic erosions after the ingestion of concentrated alcohol, although these lesions heal rapidly.…”