Helicobacter pylori active infection in patients with acute coronary heart disease

Objectives. To evaluate the possible role of the active Helicobacter pylori infection as a trigger factor in acute coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods. Forty patients with acute coronary syndromes, 40 patients with infections other than H. pylori (control group A) and 40 healthy subjects (control group B), pair matched for age, sex and CHD risk factors were studied. In each patient and control subject the presence of H. pylori stool antigen (HpsA) and serum anti-CagA were tested. Results. Twenty-eight of patients with CHD resulted positive for HpSA compared to 14 patients of control group A and 16 subjects of group B (p = 0.00095). No significant difference was found in the anti-CagA positivity among patients with CHD and control groups. Concomitant positivity for anti-CagA and HpSA was found in 13 patients with CHD, four controls of group A and five controls of group B (p = 0.017). Conclusions. Our findings revealed a higher rate of HpSA positivity and a significantly higher association between HpSA and anti-CagA positivity in patients with acute CHD compared to control groups. These data suggest that active H. pylori infection may play a role as a trigger factor in acute cardiovascular events. (C) 2004 The British Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.