The Rate of Infection by Helicobacter Pylori in Gastric Cancer Patients

Kim, Wan Soo; Oh, Sung Tae; Kim, Byung Sik; Park, Kun Choon

Abstract

The infection by Helicobacter pylori(H.pylori) is known to be closely related with chronic gastritis, gastroduodenal ulcer and gastric cancer, although there is no direct evidence that shows clear "cause and effect" relationship between H.pylori and gastric cancer. The authors evaluated the infection rate by H.pylori in 45 gastric cancer patients who underwent resection for 1 month period of June 1996. Preoperatively, we checked for the presence of anti-H.pylori IgG by blood sampling of 45 patients. At operation, we excised 2 pieces of gastric mucosa from resected gastric specimen as soon as the stomach was resected, and embedded the pieces of mucosa in the commercially available CLO kit for urease test. The specimen was sent to pathologist for detection of H.pylori as well as staging of the tumor. 35 cases out of total 45 patients showed seropositivity for anti-H.pylori IgG (77.8% seroprevalence rate). But only 23 patients(51.1%) were positive by CLO test. The authors think the low detection rate by CLO test was due to 1)disappearance of H.pylori from the atrophic mucosa surrounding the cancer tissue, 2)inadequate tissue sampling from gastric specimen 3)delayed sampling after inactivation of the organisms, or 4)insufficient number of organisms in obtained tissue. The detection rate by pathologists with tissue stain was also low(12/45, 26.7%). Therefore, we conclude that the detection of H.pylori infection in gastric cancer patients can best be done by serological evlauation of anti-H.pylori antibodies.