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  • Helicobacter pylori and the...
    Bulajic, Milutin; Maisonneuve, Patrick; Schneider‐Brachert, Wulf; Müller, Petra; Reischl, Udo; Stimec, Bojan; Lehn, Norbert; Lowenfels, Albert B.; Löhr, Matthias

    Cancer, 1 November 2002, Volume: 95, Issue: 9
    Journal Article

    BACKGROUND The etiology of tumors arising in the biliary tract remains unclear. Several previous studies have detected Helicobacter pylori organisms in bile from patients with gallstones or cholecystitis. The objective of this study was to determine whether there is an association between H. pylori in bile and biliary tract carcinoma. METHODS The authors used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays to detect the presence of H. pylori in the stomach and bile from 89 patients: Sixty‐three disease free patients had biliary calculi, 15 patients had carcinoma of the biliary tract, and 11 patients had neither gallstones nor carcinoma. Bile was considered to contain H. pylori only if the results of PCR determinations were positive in two or more samples assayed independently in two separate laboratories. RESULTS There was a strong association between the presence of H. pylori in the stomach and in the bile (P ≤ 0.01). Biliary H. pylori was associated with age but not with gender, and it was associated strongly with the clinical diagnosis. Patients with gallstones were 3.5 times as likely to have H. pylori in the bile compared with patients in a control group (95% confidence interval 95%CI, 0.8–15.8; P = 0.100), and H. pylori was 9.9 times more frequent in patients with biliary tract carcinoma compared with patients in the control group (95%CI, 1.4–70.5; P = 0.022). CONCLUSIONS There is a strong association between biliary tract carcinoma and H. pylori in bile. If these results are confirmed by prospective studies, H. pylori may be responsible for a significant proportion of malignant biliary tract disease. Cancer 2002;95:1946–53. © 2002 American Cancer Society. DOI 10.1002/cncr.10893 Investigating the presence of Helicobacter pylori in the stomach and bile of patients with gallstone disease and biliary tract carcinoma, H. pylori was 9.9 times more frequent in patients with biliary tract carcinoma compared with participants in a control group (95% confidence interval, 1.4–70.5; P = 0.022) both in the stomach and in the bile.