Gastric Cancer Screening in Common Variable Immunodeficiency

Individuals with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) have an increased risk of gastric cancer, and gastrointestinal lymphoma, yet screening for premalignant gastric lesions is rarely offered routinely to these patients. Proposed screening protocols are not widely accepted and are based on gastric cancer risk factors that are not applicable to all CVID patients. Fifty-two CVID patients were recruited for screening gastroscopy irrespective of symptoms or blood results and were compared to 40 controls presenting for gastroscopy for other clinical indications. Overall, 34% of CVID patients had intestinal metaplasia (IM), atrophic gastritis or moderate to severe non-atrophic gastritis, which can increase the risk of gastric cancer, compared to 7.5% of controls ( p