COMPARISON OF QUANTITATIVE VARIABLES BETWEEN PATIENTS WITH RELATIVELYNORMAL AND GASTRITIS-ALTERED MUCOSAE

OBJECTIVE: To develop a statistical (regression) analysis of quantitat ive patterns of human epithelial nuclear and cellular profiles from ch ronic atrophic and hypertrophic gastritis, excluding Menetrier's gastr opathy. STUDY DESIGN: The study group consisted of 30 patients with ch ronic gastritis with or without intestinal metaplasia, including gastr ic dysplasia. The control group consisted of 25 patients with relative ly normal mucosae. Both groups were compared with respect to changes i n quantitative morphometric variables as well as nuclear DNA quantitie s. RESULTS: Specific interdependences between minor (B-N) and major (L -N) nuclear axis length and cellular caliper diameters (B-c) and (L-c) were stipulated; thus, the corresponding area features were determine d by regression equations. The value of the L2 norm as differences bet ween corresponding linear functions involved in the regression equatio ns were also examined. Higher nuclear DNA content values were obtained from patients with chronic gastritis. CONCLUSION: Chronic gastritis a ppears to be an intermediate and crucial moment in the process of gast ric mucosal malignant progression. The pentaploid (5C) region was foun d to be an intermediate and critical feature of chronic gastritis sinc e values in the ploidy range higher than pentaploid have been found to potentially indicate a malignancy.