Grading Atrophic Gastritis by Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy Probe (p-CLE)

Atrophic gastritis (AG) is a chronic disease, associated to gastric adenocarcinoma moreover if severity AG is present. Sydney system classified AG as mild, moderate and severe, but with moderate interobserver agreement, due to this system is based in a visual analogic scale (qualitative analysis). Confocal endomicroscopy showed an accuracy of 98% for diagnosis gastric diseases, but when grading AG still remains a qualitative measure. Recently, a new software called "Cellvizio® Viewer" (CV) permits to measure in micrometers (µm) the structures observed after confocal laser endomicroscopy probe studies. Based on the hypothesis that AG severity is correlated with crypts size diminution, the aim of this study is to determine a quantitative way to classify the severity of AG measuring the crypt area and inter-crypt spaces in patients with AG.