HELICOBACTER-PYLORI INFECTION ACCELERATES HUMAN GASTRIC-MUCOSAL CELL-PROLIFERATION

Helicobacter pylori causes chronic atrophic gastritis and intestinal t ype gastric cancer arises against a background of atrophic gastritis. Increased proliferation of epithelial cells is an important indicator of increased risk for gastric adenocarcinoma. We investigated gastric mucosal cell proliferation in H. pylori-associated gastritis and the e ffect of eradication therapy on this proliferation in 45 patients endo scopically diagnosed (31 with persistent eradication and 14 in whom H. pylori) recurred. H. pylori status was determined by culture and hist ology in biopsied specimens from the gastric antrum and corpus. Eradic ation of the infection was defined as reversal to negative on both tes ts. In vitro Ki-67 immunostaining of endoscopic biopsy specimens was u sed to measure mucosal cell proliferation in H. pylori-associated gast ritis before and after therapy. The proliferative zone was defined as the distance of Ki-67-positive gastric epithelial cells between the hi ghest and the lowest cells. In patients in whom H. pylori was eradicat ed, cell proliferation in both the antral and corpus mucosa had decrea sed 4 weeks after completion of the eradication therapy (P < 0.01, P < 0.001), and 6 months later, it had markedly decreased (P < 0.05; P < 0.05) and returned to normal. In patients in whom H. pylori recurred, only antral epithelial cell proliferation was reduced 4 weeks after er adication therapy, but when H. pylori recurred, determined by culture and histology, cell proliferation level was the same as that before er adication. These results suggest that H. pylori infection accelerates cell proliferation in gastric mucosa and may play a causal role in the chain of events leading to gastric carcinoma.