Chronic Helicobacter Pylori Infections and Carotid Intima- Media Thickness: Is There a Link

Chronic infections are related with cardiovascular diseases. The thickness of carotid intima-media is an indicator of atherosclerosis. Helicobacter pylori induced chronic active gastritis is resulted with atrophic gastritis. This study was done to studied the thickness of carotid intima-media in patients with atrophic gastritis and without it. One hundred and twenty three patients who were performed esophagogastroduodenoscopy for various reasons. Biopsy samples have been taken from antrum and corpus for histologic evaluation and rapid urease test. Helicobacter pylori was accepted as positive in patients in whom both histologic evaluation and rapid urease test result had been positive. Histopathologic evaluation has been performed according to to the Sydney classification. Helicobacter pylori positive casess were diveded into two groups as atrophic gastritis and non-atrophic gastritis. In 92 of 123 patients, helicobacter pylori positive non-atrophic gastritis and in 31 of them, helicobacter pylori positive atrophic gastritis was observed. In both groups. The mean age was 46 years. There were not differences between the two groups according to age, sex, body mass index, blood lipids, ferritin, platelet count, fibrinogen, vitamin B-12, C-reactive protein and the thickness of carotid intima media. The thickness of carotid intima media was not found as related with the chronic helicobacter pylori infection.