Helicobacter Pylori

Introduction Since the discovery of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) by Warren and Marshall (1) two decades ago, evidence has been accumulating to indicate that it plays a significant role in the development of chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer diseases, mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, and gastric cancer (2). Seroepidemiologic investigations have indicated that infection with H. pylori is very common throughout the world and most infections are acquired during childhood(3).
An association between gastritis or peptic ulcer disease and sickle cell disease (SCD) has been reported (4-6). SCD is a genetic disorder of hemoglobin formation that is inherited as autosomal recessive sickle cell gene(7). Given the preexisting anemia, chronic
pylori infection and more preferred than other invasive methods (11, 12) . The IgG antibody level to H. pylori is usually increased and may be a marker for H. pylori infection; also because of its high sensitivity and specificity it has been widely used in epidemiologic studies and many physicians didn’t further diagnose their patients for H. pylori infection after an IgG negative serology (13, 14).
Although the diagnostic utility of IgG antibodies to H. pylori is well established, the usefulness of IgA tests is less well documented. Authors reported a subset of H. pylori infected individuals who were positive for IgA but negative for IgG antibodies(15) , making the evaluation of IgA titers the only serological method of confirmation in diagnosis of H. pylori infection. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of H pylori infection as well as to investigate the relationship between H. pylori and recurrent abdominal pain, age, duration of illness and number of transfusions among a sample of SCD children in Egypt. We were also aiming to compare the commercially available ELISA for IgG versus the combined IgG and IgA for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection in children with