Importance in diagnosis of gastritis of detection by PCR of the cagA gene in Helicobacter pylori strains isolated from children.

The cagA gene has been detected by PCR and DNA hybridization in 45 Helicobacter pylori strains isolated from children. For each child, clinical symptoms, endoscopic aspect of the gastric mucosa, and histological gastritis were evaluated. Gene-positive strains were associated with hemorrhagic gastritis in 66.6% of the children, while gene-negative strains were associated with hemorrhagic gastritis in 11.2% of the children (P = 0.0001). In addition, 88.8% of gene-positive strains were associated with severe histological gastritis (scores of 3 and 4), and gene-negative strains were collected from the gastric mucosa with the same type of infiltration of neutrophils and lymphocytes in the lamina propia in 55.5% of the children. These differences were statistically significant (P = 0.017). Gene-positive strains were also isolated more frequently from children with vomiting (P = 0.04), while the absence of clinical signs was not significantly different in cagA gene-positive or -negative patients. All of these observations confirmed the role of this cagA gene as a marker of gastric inflammation in children. The detection of this gene might be helpful to determine the degree of inflammation of the gastric mucosa in the absence of abdominal symptoms. We might better understand the natural history of H. pylori infection if we studied the evolution of gastritis in children with regard to the cagA status of isolated strains.