The association of Campylobacter pylori with mucosal pathological changes in a population at risk for gastric cancer.

In the study of a group of 178 unselected patients (105 men, 73 women, mean age 44.5 years), from a population at high risk for gastric carcinoma, who presented with chronic dyspepsia, a minimum of 8 gastric and oesophageal biopsy specimens were taken during upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy, and examined histologically and histochemically for the presence of Campylobacter pylori and other pathological lesions. Gastric colonisation by C. pylori was found in 75% of men and 68.4% of women. In 90% of patients with duodenal or gastric ulcer and in 71.6% of patients with non-ulcer and non-cancer dyspepsia there was a moderate or severe degree of bacterial colonisation. Association between C. pylori colonisation and microscopic evidence of type B gastritis, gastric or duodenal ulcer, gastric cancer, oesophagitis and oesophageal glycogenic acanthosis was found.