June 07, 2018 – Helicobacter pylori and Prevention of Gastric Cancer

This article consists of two letters to the editor regarding a clinical trial in which the relationship between Helicobacter Pylori eradication and rate of new tumor occurrences unrelated to gastric cancer (metachronous gastric cancer) and grade of corpus atrophy was examined. In a potential trial conducted in South Korea, early gastric cancer patients who received treatment to eradicate H. pylori showed a lower rate of metachronous gastric cancer than patients in the placebo group; the patients in the treatment group also showed more improvement from baseline in the grade of corpus atrophy. Corpus atrophy was found to be more common among patients with persistent H. pylori infection than patients who had received H. pylori treatment. With regards to the recurrence of gastric cancer after eradication of H. pylori and the relationship between atrophic gastritis and metachronous gastric cancer, the authors responded that their results are not conclusive due to small sample size and number of events. The authors established that H. pylori treatment antibiotics may impact patients’ risk for other cancers and conditions but overall, H. pylori treatment should be given to early gastric cancer patients to reduce the occurrence of metachronous gastric cancer and the need for surgery.
Diagnosis and Screening
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