ORIGINAL ARTICLE Helicobacter pylori in gallbladder mucosa in patients with gallbladder disease Virinder Kumar Bansal & Mahesh C. Misra & Gaurav Chaubal & S. Datta Gupta & Bimal Das & Vineet Ahuja & Sushma Sagar Received: 10 August 2010 / Accepted: 9 January 2012 / Published online: 21 February 2012 # Indian Society of Gastroenterology 2012 Abstract Background Helicobacter species have been found to be associated with biliary tract diseases. This prospective study was done to determine the prevalence of H. pylori in the biliary tract of patients suffering from gallbladder disease. Methods Forty-nine patients undergoing laparoscopic/open cholecystectomy for benign biliary tract diseases were in- vestigated with urea breath test for H. pylori infection of gastric antrum. Bile and gallbladder tissues were studied for presence of H. pylori by rapid urease test, histopathological examination, culture and PCR analysis. Gallbladder speci- mens from two patients who underwent Whipple’ s operation and from 10 cadavers were studied as controls. Results The mean (SD) age of patients was 42.4 (11.1) years. Urea breath test was positive in 17 (34.6%) cases. Rapid urease test was negative in all the cases. There was no evidence of H. pylori infection of gallbladder on histopath- ological examination using H&E, Giemsa and Warthin Starry stains. H. pylori DNA were detected in 16 patients (32.6%) and none of the 12 controls by PCR analysis (p 0 0.025). The presence of H. pylori DNA in bile and/or gallbladder was associated with positive urea breath test, (p <0.0001). Other factors like age, gender, jaundice and cholestasis were not associated with H. pylori infection of bile and gallbladder. Conclusions Nearly three quarters of patients with positive urea breath test have detectable H. pylori DNA in gallbladder tissue. The significance of these findings needs to be further evaluated. Keywords Cholecystectomy . Detection of Helicobacter pylori . Gallbladder cancer Introduction The incidence of gallbladder cancer is reported to be high in northern India [1]. There are no identified etiological factors in the causation of gallbladder cancer. Eighty percent of patients with gallbladder cancer have gallstones, but a cause and effect relationship has not been established [2]. There are many etiological factors for the formation of gallstones, and infection of the biliary tract has been suspected to lead to stone formation [3]. Helicobacter species has been identified in bile and biliary tissue in patients with benign and malignant biliary tract disease. The prevalence of Helicobacter species infection of the biliary tract has been reported to vary from 0% to 70% in different studies and from different regions [4–7]. This pro- spective case–control study was done to study the prevalence V. K. Bansal (*) : M. C. Misra : G. Chaubal : S. Sagar Department of Surgical Disciplines, Room No. 5021, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India e-mail: drvkbansal@gmail.com S. Datta Gupta Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India B. Das Department of Microbiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India V. Ahuja Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India Indian J Gastroenterol (March–April 2012) 31(2):57–60 DOI 10.1007/s12664-012-0162-8