No inverse relationship between Helicobacter pylori infection and adult asthma with peptic ulcer disease.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Inverse correlation between childhood-onset asthma and human gastric Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection exists. To investigate whether adult asthma patients with peptic ulcer disease demonstrated lower rates of H. pylori infection.

METHODOLOGY

Asthma patients were identified from records of inpatient treatments or from 3 or more ambulatory care claims using the International Classifications of Diseases, Revision 9, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) diagnosis code: 493. To be defined as a non-asthma patient, a person cannot have the code ICD-9-CM: 490-494, and 496 in inpatient records or in the ambulatory care claims. The sample included 2,894 H. pylori-positive patients with peptic ulcers and 522 H. pylori-negative patients with peptic ulcers. A logistic regression model was used to calculate the odds ratio and a 95% confidence interval.

RESULTS

Asthma patients with peptic ulcers included 74 H. pylori-positive and 21 H. pylori-negative. Non-asthma patients with peptic ulcers comprised 2,820 H. pylori-positive and 501 H. pylori-negative. Based on logistic regression analysis, adult asthma patients with peptic ulcers (OR = 0.71, P = 0.187) demonstrated similar H. pylori infection rates, compared to adult non-asthma patients with peptic ulcers.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data show no inverse relationship between Helicobacter pylori infection and adult asthma with peptic ulcers.