This study is a trail to find out any association between helicobacter pylori (HP) infection and coronary heart
disease. A total of fifty subjects were included, forty of them were patients with coronary heart disease taken as a
study group and ten healthy persons were chosen as a control group. The study group was subdivided into two
subgroups : subgroup A comprised thirty patients with myocardial infarction followed by angina and subgroup B
included 10 patients suffered from angina only. All patients with coronary heart disease were non smokers and none
of them had known risk factors as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and hyperuricaemia. Laboratory
investigations, electrocardiographic study, serologic examination for detection of HP were done for all subjects. Upper
endoscopy followed by gastric biopsy and histopathologic examination were performed only for seropositive cases.
Serologic examination for HP was positive in 75% in coronary heart disease patients compared to 40% of the control
cases. The percentage of HP infection in infarction and angina subgroups was 76.6% and 70% respectively, 64.67%
of patients with coronary heart disease showed severe HP infection and 53.33% showed moderate infection. All cases
with severe infection were suffering from myocardial infarction. It could be concluded that Helicobacter pylori
infection might play a considerable role in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease and therefore, eradication of
helicobacter pylori infection by proper antibiotic therapy might be of good prophylactic value against coronary heart
disease. |
