Helicobacter pylori: enemy, commensal or, sometimes, friend?

View Point Helicobacter pylori: enemy, commensal or, sometimes, friend?

Helicobacter pylori is a Gram-negative ε-proteobacterium that colonizes about 50% of humans. Some pertinent characteristics are that it can survive the acid of the stomach, produces urease to neutralize it and is motile due to apical flagella. Not surprisingly given its wide distribution, it has long colonized mankind and its genome encodes many features that allows this. Consequently, it frequ...

Stethoscope: a friend or an enemy?

CONTEXT The stethoscope is a universal tool in the hospital that is in direct contact with many patients and can therefore be a vector in the dissemination of bacterial infections. OBJECTIVE To research the presence of bacteria, fungi and yeast on the stethoscope diaphragm and the resistance of bacteria to antimicrobial drugs. DESIGN Descriptive, prospective, non-controlled. SETTING A ter...

volatile anesthetics in ischemic liver injury: enemy or friend?

Helicobacter pylori the Latent Human Pathogen or an Ancestral Commensal Organism

We dedicated this review to discuss Helicobacter pylori as one of the latest identified bacterial pathogens in humans and whether its role is mainly as a pathogen or a commensal. Diseases associated with this bacterium were highly prevalent during the 19th century and gradually have declined. Most diseases associated with H. pylori occurred in individuals older than 40 years of age. However, ac...

Volatile Anesthetics in Ischemic Liver Injury: Enemy or Friend?

Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Liver surgery and perioperative care of patients with hepatic dysfunction is still moving toward better safety. Anesthesiologists play their role with judicious selection of anesthetic medications. Ischemic liver injury occurs in a variety of clinical settings such as trauma, shock, and liver surgery (1, 2). Isch-emia and subseq...