Recent trends in the prevalence of Helicobacter Pylori in symptomatic children: A 12-year retrospective study in a tertiary centre.

Objective: Helicobacter pylori infection is common among Asians. However, evidence in the recent years has demonstrated a decrease in the prevalence of H. pylori infection among children and adults worldwide. Our aim was to update its prevalence in symptomatic children in our locality in the recent 12 years and compared to the results of our previous review published in 2005.

Methods: A retrospective review was carried out between 2005 and 2017. All children who presented with dyspepsia or gastrointestinal bleeding and underwent oesophagogastroduodenoscopy with antral biopsy taken were included. Patient demographics, endoscopic, or histological diagnosis and the H. pylori status were recorded.

Main Results: A total of 602 patients were included. There was a statistically significant decreasing trend of H. pylori infection rate between 2005 and 2017 (p = 0.003). The overall infection rate from this study was 12.8%, compared to 25.6% from our previous review. Overall failure of eradication with first-line antibiotic therapy has increased to 29.3% from 10% in our previous review.

Conclusion: There was a decrease in the prevalence of H. pylori infection among symptomatic children for the recent 12 years, comparing to our previous data from 2005. We hypothesize that the reduction in prevalence of H. pylori infection among adults and the decrease in the practice of sharing chopsticks during meals have led to a decrease in transmission of the bacteria among family members in Hong Kong. However, the failure of eradication with first line treatment was higher, possibly due to the increase in antibiotics usage and resistance.

Level Of Evidence: III.