Gastric atrophy and xanthelasma are markers for predicting the development of early gastric cancer

The significance of gastric xanthelasma in relation to gastric cancer still remains unclear. We investigated whether gastric xanthelasma would be a useful marker for predicting the development of early gastric cancer.

A total of 1823 patients who underwent a medical health checkup were enrolled. We examined the relationship between gastric xanthelasma and various clinical features, and in an endoscopic follow-up study investigated whether the presence of gastric xanthelasma was predictive of the development of early gastric cancer.

In the initial endoscopic examination, gastric xanthelasma was detected in 107 (5.9 %) of the 1823 patients. The presence of gastric xanthelasma was significantly associated with age ≥65 years, male gender, open-type atrophy, and the presence of diabetes mellitus (DM) (p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001, p < 0.0001, and p < 0.0001, respectively). During the endoscopic follow-up period, early gastric cancer was found in 29 (1.6 %) of the 1823 patients. Gastric cancer occurred in 15 (14.0 %) of 107 patients with gastric xanthelasma, whereas it occurred in 14 (0.8 %) of 1716 patients without (p < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that open-type atrophy and gastric xanthelasma were independently related to the development of gastric cancer (odds ratio 7.19 [2.50–20.83]; p = 0.0003 and 5.85 [2.67–12.82]; p < 0.0001, respectively). The presence of gastric xanthelasma was significantly predictive of gastric cancer development even in the selected high-risk groups with open-type atrophy or DM (p < 0.0001 or p < 0.0001, respectively).

Gastric xanthelasma is a useful marker for predicting the development of gastric cancer.