Abstract
Helicobacter pylori is one of the most common causes of chronic gastritis in adults and children. Recently, another microorganism within the Helicobacter species has been described causing gastritis: H. heilmannii, formerly known as Gastrospirillum hominis (1–5). H. heilmannii infection rarely affects children: an overall incidence of H. heilmannii gastritis in children of 0.3% to 0.4% has been described (6,7). However, in domestic cats and dogs the frequency of H. heilmannii infection is as high as 80% to 100% (8–10). Therefore, H. heilmannii infection has been postulated to be a zoonosis (1,11), especially since humans with this infection often live in close contact with animals. Proof of this hypothesis is lacking so far. Here we present a 5-year-old boy with H. heilmannii gastritis, and demonstrate by sequence analysis that the causative H. heilmannii strain was also present in both of his cats. Given the incidence of H. heilmannii infection in humans and cats, we propose that our patient was infected by one of his cats.
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