Overview of Current Concepts in Gastric Intestinal Metaplasia and Gastric Cancer.

Gastric intestinal metaplasia is a precancerous change of the mucosa of the stomach with intestinal epithelium, and is associated with an increased risk of dysplasia and cancer. The pathogenesis to gastric cancer is proposed by the Correa hypothesis as the transition from normal gastric epithelium to invasive cancer via inflammation followed by intramucosal cancer and invasion. Multiple risk factors have been associated with the development of gastric intestinal metaplasia interplay, including infection and associated genomics, host genetic factors, environmental milieu, rheumatologic disorders, diet, and intestinal microbiota.