Rashmi Patnayak1, Amitabh Jena2, Venkat Rami Reddy3. 1. Department of Pathology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. 2. Department of Surgical Oncology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. 3. Department of Surgical Gastroenterology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Dear Editor,We read with interest the review article ‘Helicobacter pyloriinfection among patients with upper gastrointestinal symptoms: Prevalence and relation to endoscopy diagnosis and histopathology’ by Shrestha et al.[1]In our study from a tertiary care in South India, we had noted H. pylori positivity in 62% cases of gastritis by using different staining methods like modified Giemsa, Warthin starry, immunohistochemistry apart from routine Hematoxylin and eosin (H and E).[2] Since the authors have not mentioned, we presume that the detection rate referred by them is from H and E stain. Similar to this study, in our study there was not much difference between male and female gender, the ratio being 1.2:1. Our study group has mean age of 47.2 years.[23]Another recently published article by Rizwan et al. has highlighted the epidemiology and pattern of antibiotic resistance in H. pylori in Saudi Arabia.[4] They have opined that in developing countries H. pylori infection is more prevalent in children as compared to adults. Majority of cases in our study groups were adults. In the further follow-up period of our cases, which ranged from 1 to 5 years, we did not encounter any other malignancies like gastric adenocarcinoma or lymphoma in these cases.[2]We agree with the message given by the authors that the prevalence of H. pylori infection is high and we would like to add that in selected cases like unexplained gastritis and patients with previous history of antibiotic use, immunohistochemistry may help to improve the detection rare.