Although it has been closely related to human digestive diseases in the last 40 years or so, it has actually coexisted with humans for about 100,000 years and affects about 4.4 billion people worldwide. More than half of our people are infected with HP.
HP infection is one of the most important risk factors for stomach cancer. It is estimated that gastric cancer caused by HP infection accounts for about 80% of all gastric cancer cases in the world, and China is recognized as one of the countries with a high incidence of gastric cancer in the world.
At present, the mainstream view at home and abroad is that patients with Helicobacter pylori infection should be given to reduce the incidence of gastric cancer regardless of whether they have symptoms and/or complications, and the premise is to accurately and effectively detect Helicobacter pylori.
Currently, HP tests can be performed in stool, serum, and saliva. Among them, serum HP antibody detection has the characteristics of small trauma to the human body, high degree of automation, batch detection, and low cost, which can be applied to epidemiological investigation. The existing expert consensus also shows that the use of serum HP antibody detection in developing countries with high infection rates can better screen out infected people, reduce the number of gastroscopy, and have a positive role in promoting people's public health and hygiene.
In addition, fecal HP antigen detection has become more and more widely used in clinical practice in recent years, and its advantages are non-invasive, simple to collect, low cost, easy to operate, and easy for patients to accept. In the "Fifth National Consensus Report on the Treatment of Helicobacter pylori Infection", it is believed that the accuracy of fecal HP antigen test is comparable to that of urea breath test, and it is recommended to use fecal HP antigen test for the diagnosis of HP infection.