Seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in chronic chagasic patients, and in the rural and urban population from Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil

As patients with chronic Chagas disease exhibit morphological and functional changes of the stomach (hypomotility and hypochlorhydria), malnutrition, immunological deficiency and high prevalence of peptic disease associated to Helicobater pylori infection, the purpose of this study was to evaluate if the prevalence of H. pylori infection in chronic chagasic is higher than in non-chagasic individuals in the urban and rural population from Uberlândia, MG, Brazil. Serological determination of IgG antibodies to H. pylori was performed using a second-generation ELISA. Thus, 598 people were evaluated: 128 chagasic (CG), 222 non-chagasic living in urban area (U-NCG) and 248 non-chagasic living in rural area (R-NCG). Regarding the age range from 21 to 50 years, the prevalence of H. pylori infection in the CG (85.1 percent) was significantly higher than in the U-NCG (56.3 percent, p < 0.01) and the R-NCG (67.4 percent, p < 0.05). In the patients over 50 years, the prevalence in the CG (86.4 percent) was similar to the U-NCG (78.8 percent) and R-NCG (86.1 percent). Similar results were also found between the U-NCG and R-NCG for all age ranges, with prevalence rates of 29.1 percent and 35.3 percent for the age range from 5 to 13 years, and 47.2 percent and 40 percent for that from 14 to 20 years, respectively. We conclude that chagasic patients showed a higher seroprevalence of H. pylori infection than non-chagasic individuals, in the age range from 21 to 50 years, and that the prevalence of this infection was similar in the studied urban and rural non-chagasic population

Prevalence of hepatitis B and hepatitis C markers in alcoholics with and without clinically evident hepatic cirrhosis

Nos avaliamos a frequencia de marcadores sorologicos das hepatites B e C em 365 alcoolistas, determinando pelo metodo ELISA, a presenca de HBsAg, anti-HBc, anti-HBs e anti-HCV. Cinquenta deles eram cirroticos e 315 nao tinham evidencias de cirrose hepatica; nestes ultimos determinamos HBsAg em todos, anti-HBc e anti-HBs em 130, e anti-HCV em 210. Entre os alcoolistas as frequencias de HBsAg (1,9 por cento), anti-HBc (28,3 por cento) e anti-HCV (3,8 por cento) foram maiores (p<0,001) do que entre os controles (N=17,059), 0,4 por cento, 4,0 por cento e 0,4 por cento respectivamente. A frequencia de HBsAg+ no grupo de alcoolistas sem cirrose (0,95 por cento) foi semelhante a do grupo controle (0,4 por cento) e menores (p<0,001) do que no grupo cirrotico (8,0 por cento)...