Helicobacter pylori infection and precancerous lesions of the stomach.

INTRODUCTION Chronic atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, hereditary non-polyposos colon cancer, gastric dysplasia, gastric adenoma, Barrett esophagitis and familiar adenomatous polyposis are confirmed precancerous lesions of the stomach. Most of these conditions are correlated with long-term infections with Helicobacter pylori. MATERIAL AND METHOD Patients which were included in our study underwent gastro endoscopy with multiple biopsies from antrum and corpus ventricle, also urease test and histopathological examination, using special coloring for Helicobacter pylori. RESULTS 802 patients entered this study, of which 369 female and 483 male. Among female patients 56.4% resulted Helicobacter pylori positive, whereas among male patients this was at a rate of 62.6%. The most affected age was 40-49 years, in which group Helicobacter pylori infection was 64.2%. In each precancerous lesion positivity of Helicobacter pylori infection was very high.-in patients with intestinal metaplasia: 71.7%, with gastric dysplasia: 71.4%, with gastric ulcer: 68.4%, with atrophic gastritis: 66.0% and with Barrett esophagitis: 55.0%. DISCUSSION The main purpose of this study was to determine the percentage of Helicobacter pylori infection among patients with precancerous lesions, which resulted to be very high. The highest percentage of infection resulted in patients with intestinal metaplasia (71.7%). CONCLUSIONS Precancerous lesions of stomach are associated with high percentage of Helicobacter pylori infection. This confirms once more the importance of Helicobacter pylori eradication in early stages and patient's surveillance.