A Study of Campylobacter Pylori in Peptic Ulcer Disease

Abstract

We conductd a prospective investigation of 204 dyspeptic patients in a random selection from the gastroenterologic clinic of this hospital over a 6- month duration. Endoscopies were performed for the study of dyspepsia and for the evaluation of the prevalence of Campylobacter pylori in various peptic ulcer diseases through both bacterial culture and urease tests. The prevalence of C. pylon on the gastric mucosa determined by bacterial culture test of patients with nonulcer dyspepsia, gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer and gastric plus duodenal ulcer was 20.7%, 40.7%, 615% and 40.0% respectively. The presence of C. pylon shown in patients with duodenal ulcer was significantly higher than those of nonulcer dyspepsia (p＜0.001). One hundred and sixty-two patients received both urease and bacterial culture tests; the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the urease test for the identification of C. pylon was 93.8%, 89% and 91.4% respectively. The urease test applied as another method for evaluating the prevalence of C. pylon on the gastric mucosa of patients with non ulcer dyspepsia, gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer and gastric plus duodenal ulcer gave positive rates 22.6%, 48.6%, 69.7% and 50.0% respectively. Higher prevalence of C. pylori was found in patients with gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer instead of those with nonulcer dyspepsia (p＜0.05). These results suggest that the urease test is a simple, quick, reliable and auxiliary test for the identification of C. pylon in patients with dyspepsia. The common prevalence of C. pylon in patients with dyspepsia, especially those with duodenal ulcers, leads suspicion to a causal relationship. C. pylon is a candidate for the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer diseases, nor the exclusiveness.