(Ed Uthman, MD/Wikimedia Commons / https://bit.ly/40xhgPi)
A group of researchers from the University of Hong Kong found that the global prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection decreased from 58.2% (1980-1990s) to 43.1% ( 2011-2022).
The team led by Wai Leung made a systematic review and meta-analysis of 224 studies from all six World Health Organization (WHO) regions, with a total sample of almost 3 million people.
The occurrence of gastric ulcers and gastric adenocarcinoma is most often associated with infection with Helicobacter pylori, a gram-negative spiral bacterium.
Peptic ulcers in 2010 claimed from 3 to 5 lives per 100,000 of the population, and in 2018 almost 800 thousand new cases of stomach cancer worldwide were associated with H. pylori infection.
Therefore, it is important for public health to know the prevalence of this infection.
Previous estimates were limited to selected regions and generally did not examine trends in prevalence.
THE REVIEW
Now Leung’s team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 224 studies from 71 countries or regions with a total sample of 2,979,179 people.
Most studies were conducted in the Western Pacific region (80.36%) and the European region (66.29%).
There was a high level of bias among all publications.
The pooled prevalence of H. pylori infection across all included studies over the entire study period (1980-2022) was 48.9%.
When stratified by WHO region, the lowest prevalence was reported in the South-East Asia region (46.6%) and the highest in the Eastern Mediterranean region (59.1%).
The African region ranked second in prevalence (58.3%).
The overall prevalence of H. pylori infection was lower in high-income countries (46.1%) than in low- and middle-income countries (52.8%).
Overall, infection was the least common among people under 20 years of age (37.7%), but its prevalence increased with age, being most common in people over 60 years (56.1%).
No gender differences were found in the incidence of infection.
Most often, infection in the studied articles was searched for using serological methods.
The prevalence of infection was significantly higher with serological evaluation (53.2%) than with any other diagnostic methods.
When assessing prevalence over time, the overall global prevalence of H. pylori infection declined from 58.2% in the 1980s and 1990s to 43.1% in 2011-2022.
Sources:
The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2468125323000705
Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41572-023-00431-8
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