Dynamics of antral and fundal gastritis in an Estonian rural population sample.

The random population sample collected from an Estonian rural district, and in which antral and fundal gastritis was studied by means of direct vision biopsy technique, was subjected to stochastic analysis identical to that performed earlier on a Finnish representative population sample. Antral gastritis started at an earlier age than fundal gastritis. The antral and fundal age-dependent score lines, which illustrate the dynamic behaviour of each population sample as a whole, nearly meet at later age, indicating that the progression of fundal gastritis is more rapid than that of antral gastritis. The prevalence of fundal gastritis was somewhat lower in this material than in the Finnish rural population sample. However, the age-adjusted score values did not significantly differ in these population samples.