Pre-endoscopic screening for Helicobacter pylori and celiac disease in young anemic women

Table 1 Clinical and biochemical features of the “test-positive” patients compared with “test-negative” patients

Patients, n = 115	Test-positive n = 52(45.2%)	Test-negative n = 63(54.8%)	P
Age (yr)	38 (23-50)	37.5 (21-50)	NS
Duration of Anemia (mo)	12 (1-408)	12 (1-312)	NS
Hb (g/dL)	10.6 (7.3-11.9)	10.9 (8-11.9)	NS
MCV (fl)	71 (51-90)	74 (58-92)	NS
Iron (&mgr;g/dL)	22 (6-65)	24.5 (9-52)	NS
Ferritin (&mgr;g/L)	10 (1-31)	10 (2-59)	NS
Smokers	10 (19%)	10 (16%)	NS
Previous therapy with iron	22 (41.5%)	26 (41.9%)	NS
Previous blood transfusion	2 (3.8%)	1 (1.8%)	NS
Previous therapy with vitamin B12	5 (9.4%)	9 (14.5%)	NS
Previous therapy with folic acid	18 (34%)	20 (32.2%)	NS
Hospitalization for anemia	3 (5.7%)	5 (9.4%)	NS
Upper GI symptoms	26 (49%)	31 (50%)	NS
Lower GI symptoms	29 (54.7%)	37 (59.7%)	NS
Premenopausal status	49 (94.2%)	56 (88.9%)	NS

Hb: Hemoglobin; MCV: Median corpuscular volume; GI: Gastrointestinal; NS: Not significant. All values are reported as median (range) unless otherwise indicated.

Table 2 Gastroscopic/histological findings of patients according to diagnostic tests results

Patients Gastroscopic/histological findings	Test-positive n = 34			Test-negative n = 27
	H pyloriantibodies n = 26	Tissue transglutaminase antibodies n = 6	H pylori& Tissue transglutaminase antibodies n = 2
H pylori-related gastritis	26	-	2	5
Celiac disease	1	3	1	-
Normal	-	3	-	22
Total findings	271	6	31	27

¹1 patient had both H pylori-related gastritis and celiac disease.

Table 3 Extent and degree of H pylori-related gastritis

Histological findings	Test-positive patients	Test-negative patients
Antrum-restricted gastritis	5	2
Pangastritis1	21	1
Antrum-predominant pangastritis	1	1
Corpus-predominant pangastritis	1	-
Atrophic body gastritis	-	1
Total	n = 28	n = 5

¹Equal score of inflammatory infiltrate in antrum and corpus.