“What is intestinal metaplasia?”
I've been getting severe stomach pain and my digestive issues only got worse. My doctors did a biopsy and it showed that I had a intestinal metaplasia. I never heard of this. What is this, and what can be done to treat it?
2 Answers
Intestinal metaplasia (IM) means that the cell of the stomach lining have changed from normal to other cell types that would usually be found elsewhere in the bowel such as the small intestine. Luckily, in the U.S., IM is rather benign and there is no significant risk from it. In Asian, Japan in particular, IM has higher risk of progressing to stomach cancer so it is monitored more closely there. But in the U.S., there is not a lot of evidence that it increases risk of stomach cancer.
Here is a very good review on this topic: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(19)41888-X/fulltext
Here is a very good review on this topic: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(19)41888-X/fulltext
It is a condition in which the inner lining of the bowel has changed from one type to another.
