HOME > Stomach, Intestine, Liver Center > Gastric intestinal metaplasia
It refers to a precancerous change of the mucosa of the stomach with intestinal epithelium. In western medicine, there is no clear solution for cause and treatment of this pathologic alteration. In the US and Europe, gastric intestinal metaplasia is seen as a serious condition that is a pre-stage of stomach cancer, but in Korea it is not considered as serious as in the western hemisphere since there are a lot of chronic gastritis patients. Unless for a special symptom, it is managed with regular gastroscopy.
While studying the gastrointestinal phlegm-stasis disorder, the cause of gastric intestinal metaplasia was also discovered. First, it is necessary to understand the meaning of mucosa of the stomach turning into intestinal epithelium. As known, the structure of intestinal epithelium is made to absorb nutrition, but the stomach mucous membranes are not. The fact that the mucosa of the stomach now has an absorbing structure means that the mucosa is now slotted. In fact, when observed with endoscope, the gastric intestinal metaplasia looks like a round lumps. These are seen to be a lump of accumulation of food waste that was not decomposed in the layers of the stomach wall. Ultimately, the reason for the gastric intestinal metaplasia can be seen to be the same for gastrointestinal phlegm-stasis disorder where phlegm toxins open the gate of the mucous membrane of the stomach to form phlegm stagnation in the layers of the stomach wall.
Medically, the cause and treatment for gastric intestinal metaplasia have not been found and developed, and its progress into the cancer cannot be prevented. However, with discovery of the gastrointestinal phlegm-stasis disorder, the lump tissue (called JIJU in oriental medicine) found in the gastrointestinal muscularis layer is identified as phlegm stagnation. The treatment of phlegm stagnation could also improve gastric intestinal metaplasia. A lot of patients who visit our hospital have gastric intestinal metaplasia, and their conditions were found to be eliminated with endoscopic observation after the gastrointestinal phlegm stagnation treatment.
