High risk of Helicobacter pylori infection in young Japanese dentists

The route of person-to-person transmission of Helicobacter pylori may be either fecal-oral or oral-oral, because the bacterium is found in both dental plaque and feces. We assessed the prevalence of H. pylori seropositivity, which reflects present or past infection, in Japanese dentists exposed occupationally to dental plaque.

We examined the sera of 60 dentists (34 who were 20-29 years or older, and 26 who were over 30 years of age) and 60 age-matched controls by using quantitative ELISA for antibodies of the immunoglobulin G class to H. pylori.

The proportion of dentists seropositive for H. pylori (42 of 60, 70%) was higher than in controls (23 of 60, 38%). The odds ratio for H. pylori seropositivity (3.8; 95% CI, 1.76-8.02) was high in the dentists. When dentists were classified in terms of the length of their practice, the odds ratio for seropositivity (10.4; 95% CI, 3.26-32.85) was high in the dentists practising for fewer than 4 years. The proportion of dentists in their 20s who were seropositive was greater than that in the group of age-matched controls.

Japanese young dentists are at a high risk for H. pylori infection, with the oral-oral transmission route being possibly the most common.