Ultrasound criteria for predicting pre-cancer changes of the gastric mucosa in patients with chronic atrophic gastritis combined with thyroid pathology

Precancerous conditions increase the risk of gastric cancer by 2–3 % every 10 years. Among comorbid pathology, 46 % of all endocrinopathies are diseases of the thyroid gland. An urgent issue today is the definition of non-invasive criteria for the formation of a risk group for the detection of precancerous changes in the gastric mucosa in patients with comorbid pathology. The aim of the study was to evaluate the structure of the thyroid gland as ultrasound criterion for predicting precancerous lesions in the stomach in patients with atrophic gastritis under conditions of comorbidity. Materials and methods. The study was conducted among 81 patients with gastric precancerous conditions. The upper endoscopy was performed using EVIS EXERA III systems with an Olympus 190 gastroscope (Japan). All the patients in this study underwent a sonological examination of the thyroid gland on an ultrasound scanner Toshiba Xario (Japan). Results. In patients with atrophic gastritis, a high frequency of structural changes in the thyroid gland (77 %) was observed. Focal changes were determined in 33 % of atrophic gastritis patients with a predominance of their diagnostic frequency in patients with gastric mucosal dysplasia (χ2 = 5.32, P < 0.05 as compared to the patients with gastric mucosal atrophy and χ2 = 4.25, P < 0.05 as compared to the patients from the intestinal metaplasia group). Patients with gastric mucosal dysplasia were characterized by coarse-grained thyroid parenchyma, which was more common by 2.2 times as compared to the group of patients with atrophy (P > 0.05) and by 1.8 times as compared to the patients with intestinal metaplasia (χ2 = 4.09, P < 0.05). Conclusions. Diagnostic criteria for the formation of a risk group for the detection of gastric mucosal dysplasia are focal changes in the thyroid parenchyma (sensitivity 63.6 %, specificity 71.4 %), coarse granularity of the thyroid parenchyma (sensitivity 72.7 %, specificity 61.4 %) and an increased vascularization of parenchyma at the sonological examination of the thyroid gland (sensitivity 63.6 %, specificity 70.0 %).