Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 7, 2021; 27(37): 6290-6305
Published online Oct 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i37.6290
Helicobacter pylori in gastric cancer: Features of infection and their correlations with long-term results of treatment
Marina A Senchukova, Olesya Tomchuk, Elena I Shurygina
Marina A Senchukova, Department of Oncology, Orenburg State Medical University, Orenburg 460000, Russia
Olesya Tomchuk, Department of Histology, Cytology, Embryology, Orenburg State Medical University, Orenburg 460000, Russia
Elena I Shurygina, Department of Pathology, Orenburg State Medical University, Orenburg 460000, Russia
Author contributions: Senchukova MA wrote the paper; Tomchuk O and Shurygina EI perfomed the collected the data.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Orenburg State Medical University.
Informed consent statement: All patients provided written informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interests related to the publication of this study.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marina A Senchukova, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Oncology, Orenburg State Medical University, Sovetskaya Street 6, Orenburg 460000, Russia. masenchukova@yandex.com
Received: April 30, 2021
Peer-review started: April 30, 2021
First decision: June 17, 2021
Revised: June 21, 2021
Accepted: August 31, 2021
Article in press: August 31, 2021
Published online: October 7, 2021
Processing time: 151 Days and 19.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a spiral-shaped bacterium responsible for the development of chronic gastritis, gastric ulcer, gastric cancer (GC), and MALT-lymphoma of the stomach. H. pylori can be present in the gastric mucosa (GM) in both spiral and coccoid forms. However, it is not known whether the severity of GM contamination by various vegetative forms of H. pylori is associated with clinical and morphological characteristics and long-term results of GC treatment.

AIM

To establish the features of H. pylori infection in patients with GC and their correlations with clinical and morphological characteristics of diseases and long-term results of treatment.

METHODS

Of 109 patients with GC were included in a prospective cohort study. H. pylori in the GM and tumor was determined by rapid urease test and by immunohistochemically using the antibody to H. pylori. The results obtained were compared with the clinical and morphological characteristics and prognosis of GC. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistica 10.0 software.

RESULTS

H. pylori was detected in the adjacent to the tumor GM in 84.5% of cases, of which a high degree of contamination was noted in 50.4% of the samples. Coccoid forms of H. pylori were detected in 93.4% of infected patients, and only coccoid-in 68.9%. It was found that a high degree of GM contamination by the coccoid forms of H. pylori was observed significantly more often in diffuse type of GC (P = 0.024), in poorly differentiated GC (P = 0.011), in stage T3-4 (P = 0.04) and in N1 (P = 0.011). In cases of moderate and marked concentrations of H. pylori in GM, a decrease in 10-year relapse free and overall survival from 55.6% to 26.3% was observed (P = 0.02 and P = 0.07, respectively). The relationship between the severity of the GM contamination by the spiral-shaped forms of H. pylori and the clinical and morphological characteristics and prognosis of GC was not revealed.

CONCLUSION

The data obtained indicates that H. pylori may be associated not only with induction but also with the progression of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Helicobacter pylori; Coccoid and spiral forms of bacteria; Rapid urease test; Relapse free survival; Overall survival

Core Tip: The role of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in the progression of gastric cancer (GC) is not well understood. Our results indicate that in GC, a high degree of gastric mucosa contamination by coccoid forms of H. pylori is associated with advanced stages of the disease and deterioration of long-term results of treatment.