Purple haze: a useful sign for detecting gastric intestinal metaplasia.

A woman in her eighties underwent annual surveillance for atrophic gastritis. The mucosa of the lower part of the stomach showed atrophic change. White-light imaging and blue-light imaging revealed rough and nodular mucosal changes diffusely in the antrum (A, B). Only with linked color imaging (LCI), purple color changes were observed mainly at these nodules. (C) A biopsy specimen was taken from the purple area, and the histologic diagnosis was intestinal metaplasia (IM) of the gastric mucosa (D).