Background: Studies on average-risk individuals undergoing gastroscopy screening in China are scarce.
Objective: To determine and compare the prevalence of lesions found by gastroscopy and the association between sex, age, Helicobacter pylori infection and gastric premalignant lesions.
Methods: Gastroscopy results were analysed for 60,519 individuals enrolled from January 2013 to December 2019.
Results: The median age was 49.84 years (SD, 9.47 years) for women and 48.90 years (SD, 8.82 years) for men, and the ratio of females to males was 35.10% (n = 21,240) to 64.90% (n = 39,279). The most common lesions detected by endoscopy were chronic gastritis, reflux oesophagitis, duodenitis and gastric polyps, detected in 24.48%, 10.28%, 3.96% and 3.61%, respectively. Oesophageal cancer and gastric cancer were detected in 0.33% and 0.47% of patients, respectively. The prevalence of chronic gastritis increased with age and was higher in males than in females (26.47% [n = 10396] versus 20.80% [n = 4417], p < .001). The prevalence of gastric ulcers was highest in the elderly group, and the H. pylori infection rate of gastric ulcer patients was 47.28%. The prevalence of gastric polyps was higher in females than in males (5.47% [n = 1161] versus 2.61% [n = 1024], p < .001), and the H. pylori infection rate in inflammatory polyp patients was higher than that in fundic gland polyp patients (28.32% [n = 442] versus 7.29% [n = 29], p < .001).
Conclusion: The prevalence of upper gastrointestinal endoscopic lesions is high in the asymptomatic population undergoing physical examination and is associated with sex, age, and H. pylori infection.
Keywords: Average-risk population; Helicobacter pylori; gastroscopy results; physical examination.