W. Bielanski1, S. J. Konturek1, M. J. Dobrzanska1, M. Plonka1, E. Sito1, J. Stachura2, S. R. Hoffman2, B. J. Marshall3
1 Institute of Physiology, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, 16 Grzegorzecka Str., 31-531 Cracow, Poland,
2 Chair of Pathology, Jagiellonian University School of Medicine, Cracow, Poland,
3 Tri-Med Specialties, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Etiologic role for Helicobacter pylori (HP) seems to be well established in gastric pathology. The high urease activity of HP can be used to detect this bacterium by non-inasive urea breath tests (UBT). We validated the low activity version of the test in which 37 kBq 14C-urea is given orally in capsule. With the cut off value >=1.66 Bq (100 DPM) as positive, UBT results correlated highly significant with combined results for invasive methods, i.e. CLO-test + Histology score. The reproducibility of the test was 100%. The results obtained for the breath test performed locally were almost identical with that read at remote laboratory. The data found for fasting and fed states of subjects agreed in 87%. When 14C-urea was confined in the mouth of both HP positive and HP negative patients UBT showed the presence of urease activity in the mouth cavity.