Abnormal gastric emptying and Helicobacter pylori infection in patients with cirrhosis of the liver.

Thirty-seven patients aged 36-75 years with cirrhosis of the liver secondary to chronic hepatitis were included in the study. They were divided into three groups according to the modified Child's classification for cirrhotic severity, where A = good, B = fair and C = poor. In addition, the patients were divided according to the presence or absence of each of the following: ascites, splenomegaly and oesophageal varices. Radionuclide-labelled solid meals were used to evaluate gastric emptying and the 14C-urea breath test was used to detect Helicobacter pylori infection. Gastric emptying was represented by the gastric retention ratio of the solid meal at 90 min (RR90) and calculated using the following formula: the residual radioactivity within the region of interest (ROI) covering the whole stomach at 90 min divided by the initial radioactivity within the ROI at 0 min. We found that 75.7% (28/37) of the patients had abnormal gastric emptying and 45.9% (17/37) had H. pylori infection. No significant correlation was found between abnormal gastric emptying and H. pylori infection. There were no significant differences among the three groups regarding gastric emptying or H. pylori infection according to the modified Child's classification. However, the highest rates of abnormal gastric emptying and H. pylori infection were in patients in Child's class C. The differences in RR90 among patients with and without ascites, and patients with and without splenomegaly, were not significant (P > 0.05). However, there was a significant difference between the patients with and without oesophageal varices (P < 0.05). In addition, poor correlations (R2 < 0.01) were found between RR90 and serum levels of bilirubin and albumin.