ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS Is Helicobacter pylori Infection a Necessary Condition for Noncardia Gastric Cancer? Hermann Brenner1 , Volker Arndt1, Christa Stegmaier2, Hartwig Ziegler2 and Dietrich Rothenbacher1 1 Department of Epidemiology, German Center for Research on Aging, Heidelberg, Germany. 2 Saarland Cancer Registry, Saarbrücken, Germany. Although the association between Helicobacter pylori infection and gastric cancer is well established, this association might have been underestimated in epidemiologic studies because of possible clearance of the infection in the course of disease development. The authors addressed this hypothesis in a case-control study from Saarland, Germany (68 cases first diagnosed between 1996 and 1998 and 360 controls), with serologic assessment of H. pylori infection in which various exclusion criteria were used to minimize potential bias from this source. Joint application of three such exclusion criteria (blood sample taken more than 90 days after gastrectomy, advanced (T4) gastric cancer, and CagA positivity in Western blot analysis despite a negative result in anti-H. pylori immunoglobulin G enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) increased the odds ratio of noncardia gastric cancer from 3.7 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.7, 7.9) to 18.3 (95% CI: 2.4, 136.7) for any H. pylori infection and from 5.7 (95% CI: 2.6, 12.8) to 28.4 (95% CI: 3.7, 217.1) for CagA-positive H. pylori infections. Furthermore, there was no single H. pylori-negative patient out of 32 patients with noncardia gastric cancer left after additional exclusion of subjects with borderline levels in immunoglobulin G enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The H. pylori-gastric cancer relation may be much stronger than previously thought, and H. pylori infection may even be a (close to) necessary condition for development of noncardia gastric cancer. Am J Epidemiol 2004; 159:252-258. Scandinavian J Nutr, 3/04 Active Yogurt Suppresses colonized Helicobacter pylori J Gastroenterol Hepatol, 10/03 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.