Prospective evaluation of the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in abdominal surgery patients.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Helicobacter pylori infection is accepted to be associated with two mutually exclusive diseases duodenal ulcer and gastric cancer. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship and prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in different surgical diseases. METHODOLOGY: With use of simple serologic assays for detecting IgA and IgG antibodies to HP antigen, we studied the association of infection with HP and 15 surgical diseases. RESULTS: The prevalence of HP was 68.60% (results of assays were positive for 142 patients out of 207). This study confirmed statistically significant correlation between HP seropositivity and pancreatic cancer (p = 0.02), hepatocellular cancer (p = 0.000), gastric cancer (p = 0.01), colon cancer (p = 0.002), rectal cancer (p = 0.001), intestinal cancer (p = 0.026), stenosis pylori (p = 0.01), ulcer diseases (p = 0.004), jaundice (p = 0.002); statistically significant inverse association between HP seropositivity and the acute appendicitis (p = 0.013) and no correlation with HP infection and cholecystitis (p = 0.716), cholelithiasis (p = 0.06), and ulcer hemorrhage (p = 0.064). CONCLUSION: The use of simple serological tests to identify patients with HP infection could help to calculate the risk of development of severe gastrointestinal diseases.