Specialized intestinal metaplasia: analysis of prevalence, risk factors and association with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.

AIMS: There is an increasing awareness that short (less than 3 cm) segments of Barrett's epithelium and macroscopically normal cardia epithelium may harbour specialized intestinal metaplasia (SIM), a premalignant phenotype. This was a prospective study of both the prevalence of SIM in an unselected population of patients attending for endoscopy, and the association of SIM with symptoms, lifestyle, medication, endoscopic oesophagitis and carditis. METHODS: Two hundred consecutive patients underwent endoscopy.