Categorized: Abstracts & Presentations, Gastroenterology
Helicobacter pylori Gastritis: Atypical Infections May Be Missed Without the Regular Use of Special Stains
In most patients, Helicobacter pylori infection causes chronic active gastritis, a pattern that prompts pathologists to search for organisms, including the use of special or immunohistochemical stains. As a consequence of widespread use of antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), fewer gastric biopsy specimens show Helicobacter gastritis today than they did three decades ago, and many of the infected patients have a different intensity and distribution of gastritis. For example, the infection may be difficult to detect because organisms are rare, morphologically altered, limited to the gastric body or confined to unusual locations such as deep glandular epithelium, or because the biopsy is devoid of the characteristic chronic active inflammation, making the infection unsuspected and difficult to detect.
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