Permanente gastroenterologist Dan Li, MD, comments in Medscape on endoscopy research

Dan X. Li, MD, a gastroenterologist with The Permanente Medical Group in Northern California, commented in Medscape on a study by Portuguese researchers showing a link between higher endoscopic grading of gastric intestinal metaplasia and an increased risk of gastric cancer.

Dr. Li, who is also a physician-researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, has studied the risks and predictors of gastric adenocarcinoma in patients with gastrointenstinal metaplasia and dysplasia.

The study that Dr. Li commented on — which was led by Pedro Marcos, MD, of the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto and Centro Hospitalar de Leiria — was published in the gastroenterology journal Gut.

“The study was conducted at a center of expertise on using virtual chromoendoscopy (with narrow-band imaging) to assess gastric mucosal abnormalities,” Dr. Li said in the February 27 story, “Endoscopic Grading of Gastric Intestinal Metaplasia Predicts Gastric-Cancer Risk.”

“There will be a learning curve for gastroenterologists who are not familiar with this technique,” he said.

Read the full story on Medscape.