Whole Blood Test : Is It a Reliable Method for Detection of Helicobacter pylori lnfection ?

Lee, Jin Kwan; Hur, Chung

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Whole blood test (WBT) was introduced as one of the effective methods for the detection of H. pylori infection in the primary office setting, To evaluate the usefulness of this method in local clinical application, this study was performed.
METHODS
A prospective trial of WBT using BM-test Helicobacter pylori kit was carried out in 80 cases: 24 patients with duodenal ulcer, 12 patients with gastric ulcer, 7 patients with combined ulcer, 32 patients with gastritis, 1 patient with gastric cancer, 1 patient with gastric polyp, and 3 patients without significant abnormalities. For 51 selected cases among them, rapid blood test (RBT) by chromatographic immunoassay using One-step H. pylori test kit was also conducted. Warthin-Starry silver stain and rapid urease test were conducted as the standard.
RESULTS
In 80 patients examined, 46 were H. pylori positive by WBT. However, in urease test, 62 were H. pylori positive. Forty patients out of 51 tested by RBT were H. pylori positive. The sensitivity and specificity of WBT were 63.1% and 73.3%, respectively. On the other hand, those of RBT were 84.4% and 66.7%, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
The WBT is a convenient noninvasive method. It is also easy, rapid, and inexpensive. However, this method is not appropriate for the clinical setting of Korea due to its poor sensitivity and specificity.