TY - JOUR T1 - Timing and sampling in surveillance of premalignant gastric lesions JF - Gut JO - Gut SP - 896 LP - 897 DO - 10.1136/gut.51.6.896 VL - 51 IS - 6 AU - G Capurso AU - E Lahner AU - G Delle Fave AU - B Annibale Y1 - 2002/12/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/51/6/896.abstract N2 - We read with interest the paper by Whiting et al (Gut 2002;50:378–81) regarding the surveillance of premalignant gastric lesions. The authors reported that over 10 years, 12 cancers (11.5%) were diagnosed in 104 patients with intestinal metaplasia and/or atrophic gastritis. Therefore, they suggest that these patients have an increased risk of developing gastric cancer, and benefit from annual endoscopic follow up.Although we agree with the major conclusions of the study, our experience is somehow different. In fact, we have recently investigated the timing of first endoscopic-histological follow up of patients with body predominant atrophic gastritis and demonstrated that four years seems a satisfactory interval for the first follow up of these patients.1 The timing of surveillance … ER -