Occurrence of Helicobacter pyloriand Epstein-Barr virus infection in endoscopic and gastric cancer patients from Northern Brazil

Helicobacter pylori (HP) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) have been associated with cancer development. We evaluated the prevalence of HP, HP CagA + and EBV infection in gastric cancer (GC) samples from adults and in gastric tissues from patients who underwent upper endoscopy (UE). Samples from UE and GC were collected to investigate the presence of HP infection and the HP virulence factor CagA by a urease test and PCR. The presence of EBV was detected by Eber-1 in situ hybridization. In UE, 85.5% of juvenile patients showed some degree of gastritis (45.3% of patients with mild gastritis and 54.7% with moderate/severe gastritis) and patients with mild gastritis were younger than patients with moderate/severe gastritis. Among adults, 48.7% presented mild gastritis and 51.3% moderate/severe gastritis. HP infection was detected in 0% of normal mucosa, 58.5% of juvenile gastritis patients, 69.2% of adult gastritis patients and 88% of GC patients. In these same groups, HP CagA + was detected in 0%, 37.7%, 61.5% and 67.2% of tissue samples, respectively. In juvenile patients, HP infection was more common in those with gastritis than in normal samples (p = 0.004). The patients with either HP or HP CagA + were older than patients without these pathogens (p