INTRODUCTION

Helicobacter pylori is a microaerophilic, gram-negative, slow-growing, spiral-shaped and flagellated bacterium that infects more than 50% of the human population. It resides in gastric-type epi­thelium within the overlying mucous gel and in gastric glands. Invasion of the gastric mucosa by this organism is rarely demonstrated (Chen et al. 1986). It has been identified as the cause of acute and chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer disease (Nomura et al. 1994) and atrophic gastri­tis (Kuipers et al. 1995). The bacterium is also involved in the genesis of gastric adenocarcinoma (Parsonnet et al. 1991) and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (Wotherspoon 1998). Infection usually occurs early in life and if un­treated persists forever (Blaser 1990). Most people infected with H. pylori es­sentially develop chronic superficial ga­stritis, with only a few patients develop clinical sequelae of infection such as du­odenal and gastric ulceration, gastric adenocarcinoma and gastric lymphoma (Marshall 2002). Difference in the conse­quences of colonization could depend on variation among colonizing H. pylori strains, environmental cofactors or host genetics.

Numerous reports from different parts of the world demonstrated that the preva­lence of H. pylori strongly varies between developing and developed countries with high prevalence rates in developing countries (80-90%) and lower rates in developed countries (<40%). Further­more, modes and risk factors of trans­mission, as well as reinfection rates are likely to vary between developing and developed countries (Frenck & Clemens 2003; Rothenbacher & Brenner2003). Within a par­ticular country, marked dif­ferences of H. pylori prevalence have been observed between different ethnic groups. The data suggested that certain ethnic groups are more susceptible to infection with H. pylori than other ethnic groups (Dehesa & Dooley 1991; Goh & Parasakthi 2001). The trend of H. pylori infection in Malaysia has been studied previously (Goh 1997; Goh & Parasakhti 2001; Kaur & Naing 2003). Overall H. pylori prevalence was identified between 13.5 to 55%. However, in these studies, only one method of detection was used, which is serology or histology. H. pylori infec­tion can be determined by various me­thods such as the urea breath test, rapid urease test, histology, culture, se­rology or fecal antigen test. Each method has its pros and cons. Furthermore, pre­vious reports examined H. pylori preva­lence in small numbers of patients with dyspepsia, and recruitment of patients was done in a short period of time. In this study, we attempt to determine the pre­valence of H. pylori infection in a larger numbers of patients with symptoms of dyspepsia using a combination of three methods that detect active H. pylori in­fection.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Patients’ population

This is a prospective study on consecu­tive patients who underwent upper ga­strointestinal endoscopy at the Endos­copy Unit, UKMMC from January 1999 to December 2002. Only patients with clear signs of reflux or dyspepsia were in­cluded in the study. Patients who are pregnant, under the age of 10 years old and those with a history of recent anti­biotics use or proton pump inhibitors were excluded from the study. This study has been approved by the UKM Medical Ethics Committee and informed consent was taken from the patients before en­doscopy. Demographic data (age, sex and ethnic group), endoscopic findings and histological diagnoses of all patients were recorded.

Patients were classified based on en­doscopic and histological findings into four groups:

i)     Non-ulcer dyspepsia (NUD); when no disease was found after endoscopy, but presenting with upper abdo­minal pain or epigastric pain, symp­toms re­lated to meals or heartburn, nausea or vomit­ing, gastritis and/or duodenitis.

ii)    Peptic ulcer disease (PUD); when active peptic ulceration (gastric ulcer and/or duodenal ulcer) was detected after the endoscopic analysis with a mucosal break of at least 0.5 mm in one dimension, with depth or a diag­nosis of peptic ulceration made at a previous endoscopy of upper ga­strointestinal series. Past ulcers also included because H. pylori-associated peptic ulcer disease is regarded as a relapsing and remitting condition that may not be detected at a single en­doscopy.

iii)   Precancerous and cancerous lesions (PCL); includes intestinal metaplasia, atrophy, dysplasia and gastric carci­noma which is determined by histo­pathological examination.

iv)  Other diseases; includes gastro-oeso­phageal reflux disease,Barret’s oe­sophagus, gastric polyp, oesophageal ulcer and hiatus hernia which is de­tected after endoscopy with no other disease found by histopathologi­cal examination.

Biopsy materials and H. pylori culture

During oesophagogastroduodenoscopy (OGDS), biopsies were taken from an intact antral gastric mucosa using the endos­cope (Olympus, Japan) by gastro­enterologists and surgeons for rapid urease test, histological examination and culture.  Biopsy for rapid urease test was inoculated into urea medium and incu­bated aerobically at room tempera­ture, and results were obtained within 24 hours.  Biopsy for histopathological ex­amination was fixed in buffered formalin and sent to the Histopathology Unit to look for any pathological changes in­cluding presence of H. pylori.  Biopsy for H. pylori culture was placed immediately into a transport medium at 4oC and sent to the Microbiology laboratory for culture within six hours after the endoscopy pro­ce­dure.  For H. pylori culture, biopsy was inoculated onto Columbia agar contain­ing 7% ox blood, 10 mg/l vancomycin, 5 mg/l trimethoprim, 5 mg/l cefsulodin and 5 mg/l amphotericin B.  Plates were in­cubated in a microaerophilic condition obtained by using an anaerobic jar with a gas-generating kit (Campy GasPak, Oxoid) for microaerophilic atmosphere (10% CO2, 6% O2, 0% H2, 84% N2) and incubated at 37oC for 5 to 7 days. H. py­lori isolates were confirmed by colony morphology, Gram staining and positivity for urease, catalase and oxidase tests.

Statistical analysis

Data were analyzed using independent t-test, one way ANOVA and Pearson chi-square, and p value less than 0.05 were considered significant.

RESULTS

Study population demography

A total of 1376 patients were recruited in this study. Of these, 670 were male and 706 were female, with age ranges from 13 to 99 years (mean age 52.6, standard deviation 15.5). Patients were from three major ethnic groups comprising 541 Ma­lays, 630 Chinese and 205 Indians. The distribution of mean age, gender and ga­stroduodenal diseases in the study pop­ulation are shown in Table 1. Data showed that the mean age was higher in patients with severe diseases such as peptic ulcer disease and precancerous and cancerous lesions compared to pa­tients with non-ulcer dyspepsia. More male patients had peptic ulcer compared to female patients, whereas non-ulcer dyspepsia were high in female patients.

Table 2 showed the distribution of dis­ease groups among patients of three different ethnic groups.  Patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia were high in Malays and Indians compared to Chinese. Pep­tic ulcer disease and precancerous and cancerous lesions were high in Chinese patients compared to Malays and In­dians.

H. pylori infection

Specimens were considered to be H. pylori positive if either rapid urease test or culture or histopathological examina­tion methods gave positive results. Of 1376 patients, 424 (30.8%) were positive for H. pylori. Ninety nine were Malays, 232 were Chinese and 93 were Indians.  Of these, 225 patients were male and 199 were female. The mean age was 54 (age range: 15 – 98) with standard devi­ation of 14.7. Table 3 shows the charac­teris­tics of patients with and without H. pylori infection. There was a significant differ­ence in mean age between H. py­lori-positive and H. pylori-negative pa­tients (p = 0.027). H. pylori-positive infec­tion was more prevalent among males compared to females (p = 0.03). There was a sig­nificant difference in H. pylori infection between the different ethnic groups, In­dians had the highest infection rate of 45.4% (93/205), followed by Chi­nese with 36.8% (232/630) and Malays 18.3% (99/541). There was also a signifi­cant difference between H. pylori infec­tion and severity of gastroduodenal dis­eases. H. pylori-positive infection was high in patients with severe gastroduo­denal dis­eases (peptic ulcer disease and precan­cerous and cancerous lesions) compared to patients with non-ulcer dys­pepsia and other disease groups.

Table 4 showed the characteristics of H. pylori-positive patients from the differ­ent ethnic groups. Chinese patients at older age were more prevalent to be in­fected compared to Indians and Malays. In all ethnic groups, H. pylori prevalence was similar in males and females. Sig­nificant difference was seen between disease groups and patients’ ethnicity. In Malays and Indians, the prevalence rate of non-ulcer dyspepsia was high com­pared to Chinese, whereas peptic ulcer disease and precancerous and cancer­ous lesions were seen more in Chinese patients compared to Malays and In­dians.

DISCUSSION

Gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer and gastric cancer are common and serious gastro­duodenal disease but occur in only a mi­nority of people. Non-ulcer dyspepsia is one of the most frequently encountered disorders in gastroenterology clinics worldwide (Talley et al. 1992). Previous studies showed that the cumulative risk of ulcer development in non-ulcer dys­pepsia patients ranged from 1% to 21% during a follow up period of 1 – 10 years (Hsu et al. 2002). However, the risk fac­tors influencing the subsequent devel­opment of peptic ulcer in non-ulcer dys­pepsia patients remain unclear. In the present study, the non-ulcer dyspepsia group constituted the largest of patients (69%), whereas 19.2% patients had pep­tic ulcer disease. A small proportion of patients (8.3%) had precancerous le­sions and 0.5% of patients were diag­nosed with gastric carcinoma. Patients were from a single center i.e., from the Endoscopy Unit of UKMMC which is a tertiary and referral center for the coun­try. This offers uniformity in standards for endoscopy, definitions of dyspepsia and histology.

The important variables for increased prevalence of severe gastroduodenal diseases were age and male patients. The mean age of patients was higher in those with severe gastroduodenal dis­eases and more male patients had gas­tric or duodenal ulcer. This could be ex­plained by the presence of age related changes in the gastric mucosal defense in the elderly (Hsu et al. 2002). A study in humans (Cryer et al. 1992) demonstrated that gastric mucosal prostaglandin con­tent declines with age. Feldman and Cryer (1998) also showed that advanced age is associated with a significant de­cline in gastric bicarbonate, sodium ions and non-parietal fluid secretion. Thus aging is associated with selective as well as specific changes in the gastric mu­cosal defenses that may predispose to the development of severe disease.

The study population comprised pa­tients with symptoms of dyspepsia from three major ethnic groups; Malays, Chi­nese and Indians. Chinese formed the largest group of patients, followed by Malays and Indians, which is consistent with the high prevalence of gastroduo­denal diseases in Chinese compared to other ethnics. More Chinese patients were diagnosed with severe disease compared to other ethnics and the pat­tern has not change so much since 1994 (Haron et al. 1994; NCR 2003).

In this study, H. pylori infection status was determined by rapid urease test, culture or histological assessment on gastric biopsy. Urease test has been rendered a highly sensitive (90 – 93%) and specific (93 – 95%) diagnostic test (Laine et al. 1996). The test is fast and inexpensive for detecting H. pylori infec­tion. Culture is the gold standard for identifying bacterial infection and culture of H. pylori provide the H. pylori isolate for further characterization. Histological examination does allow for definitive di­agnosis of infection, the severity of ga­stritis as well as the presence of intes­tinal metaplasia, atrophy, dysplasia and gastric carcinoma to be assessed at the same time. In this study, an overall pre­valence of H. pylori-infected patients with symptoms of dyspepsia was 30.8% and increased H. pylori-positive infection rates were observed with the increased severity of disease. Gender and age did prove to be significant risk factors for H. pylori infection in this study, and it is con­sistent with other studies which showed these variables to be independent risk factors as well (Goh 1997). The ethnic composition in both studies was almost similar in which the majority of patients were Chi­nese. In contrast, a study in North Eastern Peninsular Malaysia showed that gender and age were not significant risk factors for H. pylori infec­tion. In the study, Ma­lays constituted the majority of the study population with 64%, whereas Chinese were 28% and Indians were 5.2% (Kaur & Naing 2003). These results showed that the composi­tion of the ethnic groups play a role in determining the risk factors for H. pylori infection.

The composition of ethnic groups re­cruited may also affect the overall pre­valence rates of H. pylori infection. In the present study, the population comprised of 39.3% Malays, 45.8% Chinese and 14.9% Indians. Whereas, in the study which comprised of 17% Malays, 53% Chinese and 30% Indians, results showed more than 45% of H. pylori pre­valence (Goh 1997). In the study in which H. pylori pre­valence rates was less than 15%, the major study population com­prised of Malays (64%), fol­lowed by Chinese (28%) and 5.2% Indians (Kaur & Naing 2003).

The differences in the prevalence of H. pylori between the ethnic groupswere consistent with the findings by other en­doscopy-based and seroepidemiological studies (Goh 1997; Goh & Parasakthi 2001; Kaur & Naing 2003) previously re­ported in the region. Further observations revealed differences in the distribution of non-ulcer dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease and pre­cancerous and cancerous lesions in H. pylori-positive patients among vari­ous ethnic groups. Chinese shows con­sistently higher rates of severe disease compared to other ethnics. Although In­dians have a higher prevalence of H. pylori infection, a lower frequency of peptic ulcer disease was observed com­pared to other ethnic groups. The differ­ence in the prevalence of H. pylori and gastro­duodenal diseases among patients of different ethnic groups living in the same country is interesting, and may provide valuable insights into the possi­ble mode of pathogenesis of the infec­tion. Patho­genic H. pylori strains, host genetics and environmental factors may account for the differences. This needs to be investi­gated.

There were some limitations in this study which should be taken into ac­count. It is almost impossible to be com­pletely cer­tain of the clinical diagnosis. A definite diagnosis of non-ulcer is difficult. Patients with only gastritis at endoscopy may de­velop ulcer disease later in life and therefore may have been misclassi­fied in the present study. Furthermore, our limi­tation is that different gastroen­terologists or surgeons did the endos­copic observa­tion on each patient, and different pa­thologists analyzed the biopsy speci­mens, although they used the same scale or scoring system. This may affect the clinical diagnosis of the patients and classification of our patients’ disease group. Another important limitation in our study is that the number of patients in each disease group is not equal between different groups since peptic ulcer and precancerous and cancerous lesions constitute a small proportion of patients with dyspepsia.

In conclusion, results of this study showed that there was a significant dif­ference in H. pylori infection among eth­nic groups in which, Indians had the highest infection rate followed by Chi­nese and the lowest in Malays. H. pylori infection rates were high in patients with severe gastroduodenal diseases. How­ever, the distribution of severe gastrodu­dodenal diseases does not reflect the prevalence of H. pylori infection among different ethnic groups. The reasons for racial differences in H. pylori infection and distribution of severe gastroduodenal diseases cannot be explained. This may be related to the host or bacteria genetic factors, and sociocultural beha­vior of the particular ethnic and this needs further investigation.