A prospective study for evaluating the effect of gastric targeted biopsy sampling with I-scan optical enhancement on the diagnostic yield of CLOtest for Helicobacter pylori infection.

Background and Aim of the Work: Helicobacter pylorigastritis can cause serious adverse effects in the short and long term. I-scan optical enhancement (OE) has a potential role to distinguish areas of infected mucosa and allow for targeted biopsy. It improves visual contrast and mucosal pattern characterization. The work aims to determine if the diagnostic yield of the CLOtest could be improved by using endoscopic I-scan OE technology for targeted gastric biopsy sampling. Patients and Methods: A prospective study recruited 112 adult patients with active H. pylori infection diagnosed by C13 UBT at Nizwa General Hospital from March 2021 to January 2022. The patients underwent a careful examination by nonmagnifying upper endoscopy and I-scan OE 3 moods, then randomly allocated into two groups. Group A: nontargeted double biopsies from the antrum and mid corpus. Group B: I-scan OE-directed targeted biopsy from abnormal mucosal patterns. The biopsy specimens were inoculated into CLOtest kits; the reading time of the positive results was at 1, 4, and 24 h. Results: Group B had a 92.8% positive CLOtest compared to 89.3% in group A (p = 0.501). One-hour CLOtest was positive in 78.5% of the patients in group B compared to 60.7% in group A (p = 0.047), while group A had a significantly more positive CLOtest at 24 h. Conclusion: Sampling a targeted gastric biopsy with the aid of I-scan -OE for CLOtest significantly hastens the positive reading time with high sensitivity.