Prevalence of Helicobacter spp in chronic cholecystitis and correlation with changes on the histological pattern of the gallbladder

Purpose: Establish the prevalence of Helicobacter spp in chronic cholecystitis and its correlation with the gallbladder's histological findings. Methods: 100 patients were operated for chronic cholecystitis with cholecystolithiasis. In pathological examination of the gallbladder, were evaluated the presence of metaplasia, dysplasia, lymphoid follicles, anaplasia and tumors that might be related to the presence of Helicobacter plus the presence of the bacilli Giemsa circle plus by optical microscopy. From the DNA extracted from the gallbladder's bile, PCR was performed by using specific primers for the identification of Helicobacter spp with amplification of the 400bp segment of rRNA gene16S, with positive control DNA from Helicobacter pylori. All the cases negative for isolation of genetic material were excluded. The cases of PCR circle minus, and Giemsa circle minus, were used as negative control group. The histological findings were compared to the presence of bacilli and PCR data using a chi-square and Fisher's Exact test (CI = 95.0%, p < 0.05). Results: Of 68 patients, 42 (61.8%) were PCR circle plus for Helicobacter spp and 19 (27.9%) had Giemsa. There was no correlation between the two findings. The PCR circle plus for Helicobacter spp was not correlated to the histological findings. The presence of lymphoid follicles and metaplasia was related to the Giemsa circle plus (p = 0.025 and p=0.039). Conclusion: There is high prevalence of Helicobacter spp in patients with chronic cholecystitis and cholecystolithiasis without be correlated with the histological patterns studied.