Conventional Narrow-Band Imaging Has Good Correlation with Histopathological Severity of Helicobacter pylori Gastritis

Narrow-band imaging (NBI) is an optical image enhancement technique that enhances the vessels and patterns of gastric mucosal surface. Here we aim to test the diagnostic role of conventional NBI (C-NBI) in identifying Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection, severity of gastritis, and gastric atrophy. Initially, the endoscopic records of 300 patients were retrospectively searched for specific C-NBI gastric mucosal patterns, where five different C-NBI mucosal patterns were identified. In a second step, 20 patients with different C-NBI mucosal patterns were subjected to gastric mucosal biopsy for HP testing and histopathological assessment. Five different histopathological grades of HP gastritis, in terms of grade of gastric atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, infiltration by inflammatory cells, and density of HP infection, were recognized among the different C-NBI mucosal patterns. C-NBI seems to be a promising method for HP infection identification and gastric cancer risk stratification of patients.