Determination of optimal time for reading of rapid urease test diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori

The study aimed to find the best reading time for the best accuracy of RUT in optimal time to obtain faster results with lower false rates and consequently save time in commencing treatment of peptic ulcers.

Rapid urease test is well known to be an accurate test for H.pylori detection in tissue biopsies.

Patients with GI problems referring to a university hospital in Tehran who underwent endoscopy and biopsy were entered  in the project and three samples of mucosal tissue were captured from the lesser curvature, the antrum and the body of stomach.

We found 39.6% sensitivity and 95% specificity for the named test in the first 5 minutes as well as PPV = 95.5% and NPV = 37.3% while the accuracy was 54.79%. Except for the specificity which was constantly 95% in all RUT reading times, other diagnostic parameters increased as time went on. The PPV was also higher than 97% after 10 minutes. The highest values of sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy were achieved after 12 hours including 88.7%, 95%, 97.9%, 76% and 90.41%, respectively.

To conclude, it seems that there are many different ideas with respect to the rapid urease test in H.pylori detection. However, the current study recommends reading the test optimally after 12 hours but it is suggested more multidisciplinary studies with bigger sample size be carried out to obtain better and more reliable results to be able to generalize in this regard.