Gastric cancer mortality in a high incidence area: long-term follow-up of Helicobacter pylori-related precancerous lesions in the general population.

Background: Due to a lack of clear criteria for recognizing subjects at risk of progression to gastric cancer (GC), this cohort study seeks to identify predictors of GC death in a high-risk population.

Methods: During 2000-2001, 1011 randomly selected residents of Ardabil, Iran without a history of gastrointestinal diseases, underwent upper endoscopy with targeted biopsy sampling. Until 2013, cancer mortality data were obtained using cancer and death registry data and verbal autopsy reports.