Dinesh Deerpaul and Sun Yun Hui
Background: In past years, many studies have been carried out to understand the complex relationship between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Few researches have been successful in showing the epidemiologic and serologic evidence for relationship between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
Objective: In this study, we aimed to investigate the seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori in patients with COPD and to determine whether there is an association between H. pylori infection and COPD.
Method: 40 voluntary patients with COPD and 40 healthy control subjects of similar age and sex were taken as subjects in the study. After the consent form was signed by both the study and control groups, every person was questioned in detail and the relevant data were collected from the case history of the COPD patients. H. pylori-specific IgG was measured with a commercially available Elisa kit from venous blood samples of the study and control groups.
Results: H. pylori IgG seropositivity was 57.5% in the patients with COPD and 37.5% in the control subject, which suggests that H. pylori infection has a higher prevalence in COPD patients than non-COPD patients. Further in our study the mean values of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) were compared between H. pylori seropositive and seronegative COPD patients and non-COPD patients and the p value was not less than 0.05 in any of the comparisons. Finally to see if H. pylori infection has any impact in COPD, the patients with COPD were grouped according to their stages of diseases and compared with H. pylori IgG seropositivity, the prevalence of H. pylori seropositivity did not differ significantly relatively to the stages of COPD i.e. between patients with mild, moderate and severe COPD. Conclusion: The results from our study suggest that there is higher prevalence of H. pylori seropositivity in COPD patients than in non-COPD patients, but we were not able to show and prove if H. pylori infection is related to COPD since our study was carried out in a very small scale and short period of time. To understand the complex relationship between H. pylori infection and COPD, we need much more time and finance, firstly so that we can carry out our study in a larger scale involving much more individuals in our study and control groups and secondly to be able to use more sophisticated and modern technologies to get better and quicker results.
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