Detection of H. pylori in endoscopic gastric biopsies: a routine research that goes far beyond the laboratory limits

ABSTRACT

Instituto Alfa de Gastroenterologia; Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brasil

It took about 10 years between the first reports of the association of the microorganism H. pylori with inflammation of the gastric mucosa and the acceptance by the scientific community of its role as the most important etiologic agent of chronic gastritis^(1-5). Over the past 20 years, after this initial phase of acceptance, the medical literature has been gradually enhanced with increasingly convincing results of potential virulence factors of H. pylori, also related with gastric cancer pathogenesis. The first evidences emerged through epidemiological studies^{(5, 6)}. Since then, molecular and genetic mechanisms have been emphatically exploited⁽⁷⁾. Currently, the participation of H. pylori in the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of chronic gastritis and gastric cancer is not up for discussion. And, overcoming this phase of clinical and experimental evidences, some countries are already planning mass eradication of this microorganism in the population in order to reduce the high incidence rates of gastric cancer⁽⁸⁾. Therefore, everything seems to indicate that the detection of H. pylori in the gastric mucosa has become an issue of great importance, since it is related not only with chronic gastritis, but also with the patogenesis of the gastric lymphoma and gastric carcinoma, the latter representing one of the main causes of cancer death.Read more…