Abstract
Japanese from Akita Prefecture, Japan, and Honolulu, Hawaii, received a battery of gastric function tests. Endoscopic mucosal biopsies were also taken from parts of the stomach at minimal, maximal, and intermediate risk for intestinal metaplasia. The serum pepsinogen I level was abnormally low in 20 of the 81 (25%) subjects who had metaplasia in two or three of these preselected sites, while only 3 of 132 subjects with metaplasia at one or no sites had low values. Neither abnormal serum gastrin nor the presence of parietal cell antibodies could be correlated with metaplasia. In two groups of male, agematched subjects—Hawaii Japanese and Hawaii Caucasians—the frequency of low serum pepsinogen I level was fourfold greater in the Japanese (9.3%) than in the Caucasians (2.3%). This finding is consistent with the higher stomach cancer risk in Hawaii Japanese.
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Stemmermann, G.N., Ishidate, T., Samloff, I.M. et al. Intestinal metaplasia of the stomach in Hawaii and Japan. Digest Dis Sci 23, 815–820 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079791
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079791