Korean J Neurogastroenterol Motil.
2007 Jun;13(1):26-30.
Prevalence of Tropheryma whippelii DNA in Patients with Reflux Esophagitis or Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Internal Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
- 2Division of Rheumatology, The Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. junjb@hanyang.ac.kr
- 3Institute of Rheumatism, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract
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BACKGROUND/AIMS: Tropheryma whippelii is the causative agent of Whipple's disease, and it is difficult to diagnose this systemic illness. Little is known about the epidemiology of T. whippelii and its prevalence in people who are without any clinical signs of Whipple's disease. Patients and
METHODS
We screened a total of 89 patients with reflux esophagitis (53 patients) and diarrhea-dominant irritable bowel syndrome (36 patients) for T. whippelii DNA and we compared them with 129 healthy controls in order to check whether T. whippelii might be a risk factor for common gastrointestinal diseases. We detected the 23S rDNA of T. whippelii in salivary samples with using a specific semi-nested PCR.
RESULTS
We found one patient to be PCR-positive in the saliva, so the prevalence rate of T. whippelii was 1.1%. Additionally, when compared with the 129 healthy controls, there was no significant difference in the prevalence rate. Both reflux esophagitis and irritable bowel syndrome were not associated with a PCR-positive test for T. whippelii.
CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of T. whippelii DNA in patients with reflux esophagitis or irritable bowel syndrome and in the healthy control patients is very low.
