Evaluation of Helicobacter pylori Infection in Students and Employees of Biology Department in Alzahra University

H. pylori infects more than half of the world-population. Infection can be detected by the invasive and non-invasive methods and serological detection of the specific-antibodies is the easiest. Our purpose was to evaluate the rates of infection in 98 students (aged 19-27) and in 29 employees (aged 19-27) at Alzahra-University. Sera was collected one-day before the test and a questionnaire based in presence of recurrent abdominal-pain, history of infection and/or treatment, gastric or duodenal ulcer in them as well in their families was prepared. Anti-H. pylori IgG, were detected using a commercial kit (Pishtaz-teb, Iran) and the results were classified as negative, intermediate, and positive from (+) to (+++). The rates of total positive, intermediate, and negative was 30%, 27% and 43% respectively, but the higher positive-rate (59%) was found for the employees. No global relationship was observed between positivity of the test and clinical symptoms; the rates of non-symptomatic positives was higher in two groups. Thirty-two percent of the employee group and 5% of the student group had the history of infection and/or treatment and 34% of the student had the symptoms in their family, of which 22% were the H. Pylori-positive ones. A history of gastrointestinal-cancer in the family have been noted for 15% of the students of which 8% were the H. pylori-positives. So development of gastro-duodenal cancer related to H. pylori can be prevented by eradication of infection.