Correlation between Helicobacter pylori Infection and The Level of Serum Inflammatory Markers

Background: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), is a Gram-negative bacterium that colonizes the human stomach. Persistence of H. pylori infection may lead to various gastrointestinal pathologies such as gastric cancer.
Objective: To investigate the correlation between H. pylori antigen in stool and antibody with serum interleukin (IL)-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α).
Methods: The participants were assigned into patients and controls, for both groups, rapid urease test, H. pylori stool antigen test, Anti-H. pylori IgA, and IgG, serum Il-6, and serum TNF-α were measured.
Results: The mean serum levels of the IgA, IgG, IL-6, and TNF-α for the patients were as follows: 32.56±0.51 U/ml, 18.37±0.39 U/ml, 71.05±1.09 pg/ml, 54.72±1.01 pg/ml, respectively, while those of the controls were: 7.97±0.35 U/ml, 2.09±0.21 U/ml, 11.69±0.50 pg/ml, 3.76±0.23 pg/ml, respectively. The comparisons of all four markers showed very highly statistically significant difference between patients and controls (P <0.001). The mean serum concentrations of the IgG showed a highly statistically significant difference (P <0.001), while all other comparisons indicated no statistically significant difference (P = 0.76, P = 0.76, P = 0.70) for the IgA, IL-6, and TNF-α comparisons, respectively.
Conclusion: Infection with H. pylori can significantly alter the diagnostic markers and the markers commonly used to determine post-infection inflammatory response thus those markers can be utilized to diagnose and/or follow up infection progress.
Keywords: H. pylori, IgA, IgG, IL-6, TNF-α
Citation: Ali MR. Correlation between Helicobacter pylori infection and the level of serum inflammatory markers. Iraqi JMS. 2024; 22(2): 414-421. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.22.2.26