pylori

infection were developed. The revised guidelines were reviewed by external experts before receiving official endorsement from the Korean College of Helicobacter and Upper Gastrointestinal Research, and disseminated to physicians and other medical professionals for use in clinical practice in Korea. The guidelines will continue to be updated and revised periodically. The rate of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is higher in Korea than in other regions, and thus the Korean H. pylori study group (the former society of the Korean College of Helicobacter and Upper Gastrointestinal selleck kinase inhibitor Research) published guidelines entitled “Diagnosis and treatment of H. pylori infection in Korea,” written by expert consensus in 1998.[1] Studies have shown selleck products that H. pylori is one of the primary causes of upper gastrointestinal disease, and the diagnosis and treatment of H. pylori infection is now one of the most important health issues in Korea.[2] In Korea, the H. pylori infection rate is reportedly decreasing in individuals younger than 40 years old. Serology tests from 5732 healthy subjects in 1998 showed that the H. pylori infection rate was 46.6% (66.9% in adults and

17.2% in subjects younger than 15 years old).[3] Serologic tests from a population of 15 916 healthy adults in 2005 revealed an H. pylori infection rate of 59.6%, indicating that the infection MCE公司 rate is decreasing in adults.[2] In 2009, the revised “Diagnosis and treatment guidelines for Helicobacter pylori infection in Korea” was announced by the Korean College of Helicobacter and Upper Gastrointestinal Research and Korean Society of Gastroenterology.[4] These revised guidelines combined expert opinions with an

extensive literature review. The guidelines described re-infection, diagnosis, and treatment targets in detail, and made recommendations for H. pylori infection management in Korea. However, the revised guidelines were limited in that a systematic review was not performed, the guidelines were lacking multidisciplinary involvement, and they did not include an objective assessment of expert consensus. Since the first revision of these guidelines, the annual H. pylori re-infection rate has been reported to be 0.5–2.5% in the West, but higher in Asia (4.3–13.0%) and in Korea specifically (2.9–9.1%).[5] In a 37.1-month (18–95 months) follow-up study of 970 patients who received the standard triple therapy from 2003 to 2010, the annual re-infection rate was 3.5%, and it was higher in males and in lower-income individuals.[5] In Korea, gastric cancer is one of the most common malignancies.[6] A meta-analyses of the effect of H. pylori on gastric cancer found that the H. pylori-positive group had 1.7–5.3 times higher relative risk of gastric cancer than the H. pylori-negative group.[7-9] In another cohort study that included 1790 patients with 9.