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. Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR).

Results: A total of 3.95% of the participants [mean age: 53.1 ± 9.9 years, 49.8% males, and 88.2% Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori-positive)] died of GC. In the multivariate model, precancerous lesions at the beginning of follow-up were associated with increased GC mortality. The HR [95% confidence interval (CI)] was 7.4 (1.6-33.8) for atrophic gastritis (AG) and 23.6 (5.5-102.3) for intestinal metaplasia (IM). Age over 50 (HR = 4.4; 1.3-14.2), family history of GC (HR = 6.8; 3.3-13.8), smoking (HR = 7.4; 3.2-17.3), and endoscopically confirmed gastric ulcer (GU, HR = 6.5; 2.5-16.4) were independently associated with GC mortality. The concomitant presence of a precancerous lesion increased the HR to 46.5 (10.8-198.6) for a family history of GC, 27.6 (6.5-116.4) for smoking, and 25.1 (6.3-105.3) for age >50 years.

Conclusions: In this population with a high rate of H. pylori infection, age over 50 years, smoking, family history of GC, IM, AG, and in particular, an undiagnosed GU were significant independent risk factors for mortality due to GC. The assessment of a combination of these risk factors might identify individuals at risk of GC who could possibly benefit from regular surveillance.