The diagnosis of gastritis

After Babylonian confusion over the histological classification of gastritis, the Sydney system brought standardization and reproducibility to the diagnostic field of gastric biopsies. Even some shortcomings do not reduce the importance of the Sydney system for classification of gastritis. Essentially gastritis is a purely histological diagnosis. Herein we describe further diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis of gastritis and show the time-dependent changes in frequencies of various types of gastritis over more than 25 years at the Institute of Pathology in Bayreuth. Pathologists should be encouraged to address the etiology of inflammatory infiltrates to enhance the clinical value of a histological diagnosis on gastric biopsies.