Proton pump inhibitors and Helicobacter pylori gastritis: friends or foes?

H. pylori gastritis and gastric acid closely interact. In H. pylori-positive patients, profound acid suppressive therapy induces a corpus-predominant pangastritis, which is associated with accelerated corpus gland loss and development of atrophic gastritis. Both corpus-predominant and atrophic gastritis have been associated with an increased risk of development of gastric cancer. H. pylori eradication leads to resolution of gastritis and may induce partial regression of pre-existent gland loss. H. pylori eradication does not aggravate GERD nor does it impair the efficacy of proton pump inhibitor maintenance therapy for this condition. This is the background of the advise within the European guidelines for the management of H. pylori infection to offer an H. pylori test and treat policy to patients who require proton pump inhibitor maintenance therapy for GERD. As such a policy fully reverses H. pylori pangastritis even in patients who have been treated for years with proton pump inhibitors, there is no need to eradicate H. pylori before the start of proton pump inhibitors. In fact, the somewhat slower initial response of H. pylori-negative GERD patients to proton pump inhibitor therapy and the fact that many GERD patients will only require short-term therapy suggests to first start the proton pump inhibitor, and only test and treat when maintenance therapy needs to be prescribed. Such considerations prevent the persistent presence of active corpus-predominant gastritis in proton pump inhibitor-treated reflux patients without impairing the clinical efficacy of treatment.