Cigarette smoking status and Helicobacter pylori infection in non-ulcer dyspepsia patients

Background and objectiveThere is strong, if not conclusive, evidence that Helicobacter pylori plays a role in duodenal ulcer disease, gastric ulcer disease, and gastric adenocarcinoma. The potential association with nonulcer dyspepsia, however, still remains unclear despite the large number of studies that have attempted to elucidate it, smoking has been found to be related to a higher incidence of H. pylori in non-ulcer dyspepsia patients. Therefore we aimed to find out the incidence of H. pylori infection in our group of non-ulcer dyspepsia patients and to study the relationship between smoking status of the patients and H. pylori positivity in them.Patient and methodsAll patients presenting with dyspepsia in whom upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy had ruled out acute or chronic peptic ulceration, esophagitis, gastric cancer, and other structural and metabolic causes were taken as patients of non-ulcer dyspepsia. Urea breath test was used for all patients. The history was reviewed; especially their smoking statuses were recorded.ConclusionIn our study we found that the prevalence of H. pylori positivity was 43% and there was no statistically significant difference between smokers, non-smokers and ex smokers in the positivity rate of H. pylori in NUD patients.