Observations of the Indian enigma is valid.

TO THE EDITOR: We write in response to the letter by Dr. Katz in the recent issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology (1). Thank you for pointing out the transcription error in table 3. We regret the mistake. Nonetheless, the thrust and conclusion of our article remains valid—despite a high Helicobacter pylori prevalence, the prevalence of gastric cancer is low in Indian patients—the "Indian enigma." On univariate analysis (as shown in our original article (2)), and also importantly, on multivariate analysis (odds ratio 2.51, 95% confidence interval 0.71–8.78, P= 0.149), there is clearly no significant difference in the gastric cancer prevalence between the Indian and Malay races. The wide confidence interval is due to the small number of Malay patients in whom gastric cancer is indeed very uncommon. It is likely that with a larger sample of Malay gastric cancer patients, a persistent lack of significant difference between the Indian and Malay races, albeit with a smaller confidence interval, will still be demonstrated.