Objectives:

Helicobacter pylori, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of some several extra or intragastroduodenal diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the seropositivity of adult dyspeptic patients who were referred to upper gastrointestinal endoscopy following rapid urease test and histopathologic examination. Serological status was determined by IgG ELISA and ASSURE H. pylori Rapid Test with current infection marker for diagnosis of acute H. pylori infection.

Methods:

During upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, biopsies were taken two from gastric antrum and two from corpus was performed in 54 patients (mean age 47 years) with dyspeptic complaints. Helicobacter pylori was assessed by rapid urease test and by histopathological examination in these biopsy specimens. Patients’ sera were tested with two serological tests: Anti-H. pylori IgG ELISA (EUROIMMUN Medizinische Labordiagnostika, Lübeck) and ASSURE H. pylori Rapid Test (Genelabs Diagnostics, Singapore).

Results:

A total of 54 patients were evaluated and H. pylori infection was diagnosed in 46 (85%) patients by rapid urease test and/or histopathology. Of the 46 patients, 34 (74%) were positive for both ELISA and ASSURE, seven (15.2%) were positive by ELISA, three (6.5%) were positive by ASSURE, two (4.3%) were both ELISA and ASSURE negative.

Rapid urease test and histopathology negative eight patients sera showed three positivity by ELISA and ASSURE, two were positive by ELISA, one was positive by ASSSURE and remaining two patients were negative by both these tests.

Conclusion:

Nowadays, there is a common effort to find a correct, reliable and simple H. pylori test. Among these noninvasive tests are more prominent in the available tests of the dyspeptic patients. That is why serology is widely used, cheap and noninvasive method to detect H. pylori infection but it has some limitations because of the not able to distinguish between active infection and a previous ‘contact’. It seems that ASSURE H. pylori rapid test with current infection marker provides us rapid diagnosis of H. pylori infection than ELISA.