Incidence of Helicobacter pylori infection in Ghanaian patients with dyspeptic symptoms referred for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy.

Helicobacter pylori has been linked with peptic ulcer disease, non-autoimmune gastritis, non peptic ulcer dyspepsia and gastric carcinoma and lymphoma. This study looked at the incidence of H. pylori infection in Ghanaian patients with dyspeptic symptoms referred for upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy and its relationship to various pathologies. Detection was by the CLO urease test. A hundred and thirty (130) patients were studied. 75.4% tested positive for H. pylori infection and the incidence peaks in the 5th decades. While 23.5% H. pylori positive patients had active duodenal or gastric ulcer, 18.8% of H. pylori negative patients also had the ulcer. Out of 43 patients with normal oesophago-gastro-duodenoscopy, 74.4% were H. pylori positive, 66.6% of gastric malignancies tested positive for H. pylori infection. It remains to be confirmed that eradication of H. pylori will relieve the peptic symptoms in affected patients with no ulcer disease.