www.aafp.org/afp AMERICAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN 1327 toms in 90 percent of infected persons. The prevalence of H. pylori infection varies geographically and has been demonstrated to be as high as 52 percent in the United States. Factors associated with higher infection rates are increasing age, African-American or Hispanic race, lower levels of education, and birth in a developing country. The patho...

In developing countries, H. pylori infection is a public health issue. The high prevalence of the infection means that public health interventions may be required. Therapeutic vaccination is probably the only strategy that would make a decisive difference in the prevalence and incidence of H. pylori throughout the world. The short-term approach, however – provided that resources allow for this ...

Dyspepsia is a common problem that is important from the perspectives of both patient health and economics. While there has been variability in the definitions used to describe dyspepsia, there have also been few standardized outcomes tools designed to measure dyspepsia-related health, especially in relation to changes in dyspepsia over time. An evaluative tool was developed, the Severity of Dy...

BACKGROUND Functional dyspepsia (FD), which is a very common disorder worldwide, is known to be caused by multiple factors including environmental and genetic factors. Sasang constitutional medicine (SCM) is a component of traditional Korean medicine that emphasizes inherited characteristics of the physical and psychological patterns of a patient. This study investigated whether the prevalence ...

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the methods used to diagnose Helicobacter pylon infection in gastric biopsies, and to evaluate the correlation between H. pylori infection and clinical outcomes. Gastric biopsies, obtained from 210 patients, were evaluated for H. pylori by culture, a commercial rapid urease test (RUT, Pronto Dry) and histological examination. A true positive result ...

BACKGROUND Many risk factors have been speculated to be associated with uninvestigated dyspepsia amongst different population groups. Some of which have been subjected to epidemiological survey while others remain unevaluated. OBJECTIVE We evaluated some of the documented risk factors amongst patient presenting with uninvestigated dyspepsia and compared with a matched group without dyspepsia ...

BACKGROUND Dabigatran, a non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant, has been shown to prevent stroke in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. Nonetheless, studies show that 10%-30% of those prescribed dabigatran experience dyspepsia that may eventually lead to discontinuation of therapy and loss of clinical benefit. AIM To evaluate the gastrointestinal tolerability of dabigatran u...

Helicobacter pylori (H.pylori) infection is probably the most important factor that has been associated with the development of gastric cancers in human populations. However, there are no reliable data on the prevalence of this infection in the Middle East. In this article, based on a comprehensive literature review, we aimed to evaluate the situation in this region. The literature has been sea...