Rapid diagnosis and precision treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection in clinical settings

Abstract

Helicobacter pylori is a gram-negative bacterium that colonizes the stomach of approximately half of the worldwide population, with higher prevalence in densely populated areas like Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. H. pylori infections range from asymptomatic cases to potentially fatal diseases, including peptic ulcers, chronic gastritis, and stomach adenocarcinoma. The management of these conditions has become more difficult due to the rising prevalence of drug-resistant H. pylori infections, which ultimately lead to gastric cancer and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. In 1994, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) categorized H. pylori as a Group I carcinogen, contributing to approximately 780,000 cancer cases annually. Antibiotic resistance against drugs used to treat H. pylori infections ranges between 15% and 50% worldwide, with Asian countries having exceptionally high rates. This review systematically examines the impacts of H. pylori infection, the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance, and the urgent need for accurate diagnosis and precision treatment. The present status of precision treatment strategies and prospective approaches for eradicating infections caused by antibiotic-resistant H. pylori will also be evaluated.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Helicobacter pylori
• gastric diseases
• antibiotic resistance
• precision treatment
• rapid diagnosis

Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that significantly improved the quality of the manuscript.

Author contributions

Zeeshan Umar: Investigation, Formal analysis, Literature review. Jia-Wei Tang: Investigation, Visualization. Barry J. Marshall: Validation, Resources, Supervision. Chin Yen Tay: Conceptualization, Validation, Resources, Supervision, Project administration.

Liang Wang: Conceptualization, Validation, Resources, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. All authors participated in the writing, reviewing, and editing the original draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82372258), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Grant No. 2022A1515220023), Research Foundation for Advanced Talents of Guandong Provincial People’s Hospital (Grant No. KY012023293), and Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (Grant No. SZSM201510050).