What this study adds
• Our data predict that about 1 in 256 people with normal mucosa, 1 in 85 with gastritis, 1 in 50 with atrophic gastritis, 1 in 39 with intestinal metaplasia, and 1 in 19 with dysplasia will develop gastric cancer within 20 years after gastroscopy
• If repeated biopsy showed a change—upward or (more noteworthy) downward in the Correa’s cascade—compared with the initial grouping, this seemed to have prognostic significance
• Further cost-benefit deliberations are needed to guide policy making on long term endoscopic surveillance of premalignant gastric lesions in low risk Western populations