One piece biopsy for both rapid urease test and cultivation of Helicobacter pylori

Increasing antibiotic resistance among Helicobacter pylori isolates and the unsuccessful attempts at eradication can impose many costs to both healthcare systems and patients. The present study intended to find a way from which H. pylori could be isolated from biopsies with less invasive procedures undertaken on infected patients.

A biopsy specimen from each patient with gastric disorders was put into urea-containing agar. After two hours, the specimens were removed from agar and placed into tubes containing 1 ml 20% glucose solution. Then, the specimens were inoculated onto the Columbia agar and incubated under microaerophilic conditions. The grown colonies were identified as H.pylori based on the microbiology tests and PCR.

Overall, 449 biopsy specimens were collected from the patients. Of all biopsies, 219 (48.8%) revealed positive results in the rapid urease test. Using the aforementioned method, 158 (35.2%) culture positive biopsy specimens were obtained.

The researchers attempted to use one biopsy specimen for both rapid urease and culture tests. This method causes fewer injuries of gastric tissue and allows antimicrobial susceptibility testing and characterization in detail of the isolated organism.