Can oral anti-inflammatory drugs cause antral gastritis?

Colds and flu are relatively common diseases. We usually treat these diseases through oral medications. Some people may ask if oral anti-inflammatory drugs can cause antral gastritis. Antral gastritis is mainly caused by Helicobacter pylori infection. If you take too many drugs, it will increase the burden on the stomach and weaken the stomach's disease resistance, so it is easy to cause antral gastritis. Let us learn about the relevant knowledge about antral gastritis.

Causes

1. Helicobacter pylori infection

Helicobacter pylori infection is the main cause of chronic non-atrophic gastritis. The relationship between the two meets the four basic requirements proposed by Koch for determining the pathogen as the cause of infectious diseases, namely, the pathogen exists in patients with the disease, the distribution of the pathogen is consistent with the distribution of lesions in the body, the disease can improve after the pathogen is eliminated, and the pathogen can induce diseases similar to those in humans in animal models.

There are two prominent types of Helicobacter pylori-associated chronic non-atrophic gastritis: antral predominant pangastritis and corpus predominant pangastritis. The former can increase gastric acid secretion, thereby increasing the risk of duodenal ulcer; the latter reduces gastric acid secretion, increasing the risk of gastric ulcer and gastric cancer.

2. Other factors

When the pyloric sphincter is incompetent, duodenal fluid containing bile and pancreatic juice refluxes into the stomach, which can weaken the barrier function of the gastric mucosa and cause the gastric mucosa to be affected by digestive juices, resulting in lesions such as inflammation, erosion, bleeding, and epithelial metaplasia. Other exogenous factors, such as alcoholism, taking NSAIDs and other drugs, and certain irritating foods can repeatedly damage the gastric mucosa.

Clinical manifestations

Most patients with chronic non-atrophic gastritis may not have any symptoms. Those with symptoms mainly present with non-specific indigestion symptoms such as upper abdominal pain or discomfort, upper abdominal distension, early satiety, belching and nausea.

Patients with functional dyspepsia may or may not have chronic gastritis. After eradication of Helicobacter pylori, the histology of chronic gastritis can be significantly improved, but it cannot alleviate the dyspepsia symptoms of most patients with histological improvement, indicating that chronic gastritis is not closely related to dyspepsia symptoms.