Evaluation of the presence of Helicobacter species in the biliary system of Turkish patients with cholelithiasis.

Helicobacter pylori is a spiral, microaerophilic, gram negative bacterium. It is usually found in the stomach of humans and is associated with acute and chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcer, gastric cancer, and gastric non-Hodgkin lymphoma (1). H. pylori DNA was also detected in human liver tissue samples of patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis and primary biliary cirrhosis (2). In recent years, several authors have reported the presence of Helicobacter species such as H. pylori, H. bilis, ‘Flexispira rappini’ and H. pullorum in the human hepatobiliary system by molecular and histopathological methods. As a result, these species were regarded as being the cause of hepatobiliary diseases ranging from chronic cholecystitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis to gallbladder carcinoma (2-6). The presence of H. pylori DNA in Turk J Gastroenterol 2010; 21 (4): 421-427