Investigation for the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in patients with gastric carcinoma in Madras, India.

The most common type of gastric carcinoma, namely the intestinal type, has been proposed to result from a precancerous process in which chronic gastritis, atrophy, intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia develop in a sequential manner. Helicobacter pylori is considered as the main cause of chronic atrophic gastritis and thus may play a role in the gastric carcinogenesis process. The present study was aimed at investigating the prevalence of H. pylori in the gastric carcinoma cases. Urease tests and ELISA developed in our laboratory and culture were used to assess the prevalence of H. pylori in the study group. The positivity of H. pylori by various tests ranged from 56.0 to 62.6% in the gastric carcinoma group and 37.3 to 46.6% in the control subjects, the difference being statistically significant. This suggests that H. pylori infection could be associated with an increased risk for gastric carcinoma, but only a very small percentage of the infected persons develops gastric carcinoma. Therefore, it is suggested that along with other critical risk factors, H. pylori may act as a cofactor in the pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma.