Early diagnosis of autoimmune gastritis

Abstract

Early diagnosis of autoimmune gastritis (AIG) is quite difficult in a physician’s daily practice. Since the disease is asymptomatic for a long time, it is often diagnosed already with severe atrophy with the loss of a large number of gastric glands and potentially significant pernicious anemia, and sometimes with the onset of cancer. Morphological and endoscopic changes do not occur immediately and are not specific in patients with AIG. In this case, non-invasive diagnostics play a key role. The diagnostics of AIG are often done in patients with vitamin B12 and iron deficiency. However, the development of these deficiencies can take a long time. The non-invasive technique with the determination of such biomarkers as pepsinogen I, II (PGI, PG II), their ratio, gastrin-17, as well as Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection, including a cytotoxic (CagA +) strain, is used to exclude preclinical stages of AIG. The titer determination of anti-parietal cell antibodies and the anti-intrinsic factor antibodies allows identifying the immune nature of gastritis. But recent studies show that these markers can be negative in some patients. This article actualizes the problem of early diagnosis of AIG and demonstrates the importance of practical application of currently existing non-invasive methods for the diagnosis of stomach diseases.