Association of Helicobacter pylori and parasitic infections in childhood: impact on clinical manifestations and implications

• Published in: Journal of parasitic diseases Vol. 45; no. 3; pp. 790 - 796
• Main Authors: Abd El Hameed, Yasmin F., Boghdadi, Abdallah M., Ghobrial, Carolyne M., Hassan, Marwa A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01-09-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Acetic acid; Children; Diarrhea; Ethyl acetate; Giardia lamblia; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Helicobacter pylori; Infections; Infectious Diseases; Intestinal parasites; Intestine; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original; Original Article; Parasites; Vomiting; Co-infection; Children; Gastrointestinal manifestations
• ISSN: 0971-7196; 0975-0703
• DOI: 10.1007/s12639-021-01362-5

The association of
Helicobacter pylori
(
H
.
pylori
) infection and parasitic infections including
Giardia lamblia
(
G. lamblia
), especially in childhood, is widely recognized to be high in developing communities. We aimed to study the impact of concomitant intestinal parasitic and
H. pylori
infections on the different clinical presentation of infected children and whether this coinfection could in turn cause any alteration in the clinical manifestations of each other. This cross-sectional study included 150 children of both sexes with their age ranging from 1 to 15 years, having gastrointestinal complaints, throughout 8 months duration. All cases were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination and stool analysis by direct wet smear and formalin-ethyl acetate concentration technique, permanent staining with cold acid fast stain in addition to
H. pylori
coproantigen detection in stool. Parasitic infection was recorded in 58.6% of patients, with
G. lamblia
the most detected parasite (35.2%). Cases infected with
H. pylori
were 63 cases (42%) of which 61.9% of cases showed associated parasitic infection. Diarrhea was the most frequent complaint (63.2%) in cases infected with intestinal parasites, while it was less frequently recorded in co-infected cases (35.8%) and in cases with
H. pylori
infection only (29.1%) (
P
value 0.0008). On the other hand, vomiting was less recorded in coinfected cases than cases with
H. pylori
infection. Coinfection with intestinal parasites (including
G. lamblia
) and
H
.
pylori
could modulate the clinical manifestation of each other especially diarrhea in parasitic infections and vomiting in
H. pylori
infection.