© 1998 by Oxford University Press
research-article |
Helicobacter pylori Colonization in Infants and Young Children is Not Necessarily Associated with Diarrhoea
*International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh
**Department of International Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham Alabama, USA
***Department of Medicine and Research, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland
Dr Mohammad M. Rahman, Associate Scientist, Clinical Sciences Division, ICDDR, B, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh. Fax 00 880 2 883116 or 00 880 2 886050. mujib{at}icddrb.org.
A cohort of 151 infants and young children aged 1–23 months from a poor peri-urban community of Bangladesh was studied to determine the relationship between Helicobacter pylori colonization and morbidity due to diarrhoea. A 13C urea breath test was performed to detect the presence of H. pylori.Children were followed up at home every alternate day for 6 months and diarrhoeal morbidity datawere collected. Diarrhoeal morbidity was compared between H. pylori-positive and H. pylori-negative children. Sixty-eight (45 per cent) children were H. pylori positive and 83 (55 per cent) were H. pylori negative. During the first 1-month period following the breath test, three (4.4 per cent) H. pylori-positive and four (4.8 per cent) H. pylori-negative children had diarrhoea. Thirty-two (47 per cent) of the children in the positive group and 43 (52 per cent) in the negative group had one or more episodesof diarrhoea during the 6-month follow-up period. Median number of diarrhoeal episodes was 1.0(range 1.0–4.0) in the H. pylori-positive children and 2.0 (range 1.0–5.0) in the H. pylori-negativechildren (p = 0.19). No significant difference was observed in the cumulative days with diarrhoea.The results of this study suggest that H. pylori colonization is not associated with diarrhoealmorbidity in infants and young children.