Rapid detection of Helicobacter pylori infection in serum and whole-blood samples

The aims of this study were to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and diagnostic accuracy of a rapid serum and whole-blood test, Quick Vue One-Step H. pylori test (Quidel Corporation) for detection of Helicobacter pylori infection. We tested 79 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms, including 8 gastric cancer patients. In total, 116 rapid tests were performed: both serum and whole-blood samples were tested in 37 patients (74 tests) and serum only was tested in a further 42 patients (42 tests). Serology by ELISA, bacterial culture and histology were also carried out on samples from these patients and used as standards for determining H. pylori infection. Diagnostic accuracy of the tests was 0.76 for both sera and whole-blood when culture and histology was used as the standard in the calculations. However, using serology by ELISA as the standard raised the diagnostic accuracy to 0.08 in serum samples and to 0.89 in whole-blood samples. Overall, the H. pylori status observed when using the rapid tests correlated well with serology, bacterial culture and histology in this study.