Low seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in patients with stress ulcer bleeding--a prospective evaluation of patients on a cardiosurgical intensive care unit.

OBJECTIVE: The pathogenesis of stress ulceration in seriously ill patients is uncertain and the pathogenic role of Helicobacter pylori infection is unknown. We therefore assessed the seroprevalence of patients of a cardiosurgical intensive care unit (ICU) with clinically important stress ulcer bleeding. We compared this prevalence with a control group matched for this kind of surgical intervention, missing history of peptic ulcer disease, age and gender.
DESIGN: Prospective survey.
SETTING: Cardiosurgical ICU in a university teaching hospital. PATIENTS AND PARTICIPANTS: Two thousand five hundred seventy cardiosurgical patients with intravenous ranitidine stress ulcer prophylaxis were screened for clinically important stress ulcer bleeding. Helicobacter pylori seropositivity was measured in all patients with a clinically important bleeding and in a control group of 245 consecutive cardiosurgical patients, matched for the kind of cardiosurgical intervention, age and gender.
RESULTS: In 56 of 2,570 (2.1%) patients signs of clinically important bleeding were seen. Endoscopical examination revealed stress ulcer bleeding in 42 cases. The incidence of stress ulcer bleeding was 1.6%. The seropositivity of the group with ulcer bleeding was 45.2 % whereas 62.4 % of the patients in the control group were Helicobacter pylori positive (p = 0.08).
CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the Helicobacter pylori infection does not play a pathogenic role in stress ulcer bleeding. Prophylactic cure of Helicobacter pylori can not be recommended in this setting.