A survey on the prevalence of Helicobacter Pylori in children afflicted with abdominal pain and the diagnostic value of rapid Urease test

History and Regarding the prevalence of chronic abdominal pain and its known complications and absence of knowledge on the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori and different reports on the diagnostic value of fast urease test, this research was conducted on children referred to the endoscopy section of the Shaheed Beheshti hospital in Kashan from 1999 to 2000. The descriptive method of this study was performed on 39 children with an age range of 3-18 years with symptoms of chronic abdominal pain. Endoscopy was done on all of the patients and then, the specimens was surveyed by rapid urease test and evaluated pathologically for the presence of Helicobacter. The characteristics, age, gender and family members were studied. The findings of endoscopy (Being normal and/or presence of esophagitis, nodularity, gastric ulcer, duodenitis and duodenal ulcer) were recorded. The prevalence of Helicobacter was determined in specimens and the confidence interval was calculated and the diagnostic power of rapid urease test was measured. The research was performed on 39 children at an age of 9.9±4.1 years old comprised of 17 males (43.6%) and 22 females (56.4%) and having chronic abdominal pain for at least 3 months with an average of 13 months. The prevalence of Helicobacter was 30.8% and the positive predictive value of rapid urease test was 50% and its negative value was 77.8%. Helicobacter pylori was not observed in the majority of children with chronic abdominal pain and it is a matter of concern to cure all of the afflicted patients. Although the number of specimens was few, it seems that fast urease test do not have a high diagnostic power in Iran and it is recommended to perform more studies in this field.