A COMPARISON OF A RAPID UREASE TEST AND HISTOLOGY FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF HELICOBACTER PYLORI INFECTION

Objective: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) have cm important role in the ethiopathogeneses of type B gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric adenocarcinoma, MALT lymphoma. Two or more tests are often utilised to improve diagnostic accuracy. We utilised both histology and rapid urease test (Hpfast) for diagnosing H. pylori infection, and aimed to detect the diagnostic accuracy of Hpfast. Material and Method: The study was performed on 73 patients undergoing upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. Two antral biopsy samples and 2 body biopsy samples (totally four samples) were taken from each patient. Two tissue samples (antrum 1 and corpus 1) were evaluated histopathogically, other samples were used on the rapid unease slides (hpfast). Results: While histology was positive in 51 patients (70%), H. pylori positivity in 41 patients (56%) was detected with rapid urease test. The sensitivity and spesificity of Hpfast vis-a-vis histology considered as gold standard were found to be 74.5% and 86.4%, respectively. Conclusion: Hpfast, which is a rapid unease test, seems to not have sufficient diagnostic accuracy. Therfore, Hpfast can not be recognized as an alternative test to histology with multiple biopsies. Hovewer, it may be utilized in combination with histology or other methods.