Gastric adenocarcinoma of the intestinal type is believed to develop through a series of
histopathologic stages, originally described by Correa, 1 that include chronic gastritis,
gastric atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia, and finally cancer. Intestinal metaplasia has
been the focus of great fascination by many pathologists, because it was unexpected to find
intestinal type mucosa containing goblet cells in the body or antrum of the stomach.
Numerous studies have implicated intestinal metaplasia as a useful biomarker for gastric …