Atrophic autoimmune gastritis: 'a muddled or misguided core concept compromises our overall comprehension of the problem

We thank Lahner et al for their interest in our study: considering their extensive experience in the field of gastric autoimmunity, their contribution is particularly welcome.1 Overall, most of the authors’ comments are in keeping with the established knowledge of autoimmune gastritis and, therefore, not debatable. We also agree with the interesting citation from Jan Aart Scholte’s work on global governance, which can be applied to any field of science: ‘Definition is not everything, but everything involves definition... A muddled or misguided core concept compromises our overall comprehension of the problem.’ We shall, therefore, start from discussing definitions. In 2002, an international group of gastrointestinal pathologists (which included Correa) slightly modified the original Correa’ definition and redefined atrophy as ‘loss of native gastric glands’.2 This definition emphasises that a decrease in the number of glandular units is not essential to a histological definition of gastric...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Gut PostScript Source Type: research