Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in a third-tier Chinese city: relationship with gender, age, birth-year and survey years

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to investigate the prevalence of Helicobacter Pylori (H.pylori) infection and its relation with gender, age, birth-year, and survey years. Patients and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on subjects that had undergone healthy checkups for H. pylori infection in a university hospital in mainland China between January 2013 and December 2017. The relationship between age, birth-year, and survey years and prevalence of H. pylori infection was investigated by Joinpoint regression analysis. Results: A total of 53,260 subjects were enrolled in this study. The overall prevalence of H. pylori infection was 48.4%. H. pylori infection prevalence was higher in females than in men. In subjects with age younger than 36 years, a greater increase in age was associated with an increased prevalence of H. pylori infection, reaching a peak at 36 years of age. In subjects with age older than 36 years, the prevalence of H. pylori infection did not change significantly with age. As to birth-year, the prevalence of H. pylori in subjects born between 1923 and 1980 did not significantly change with birth-year. It was followed by a rapid decline in those born between 1980 and 2004. Age-standardized H. pylori infection prevalence was marginally higher in women than in men (44.5% vs. 43.5%, p = 0.025). The observed age-adjusted prevalence of H. pylori infection decreased with survey year from 53.0% in 2013 to 39.5% in 2017. Conclusions: The prevalence of H. pylori infection was relatively high in this cohort of patients and decreased from 2013 to 2017, and it changes according to gender, age, and birth-year.

Keywords

• epidemiology
• prevalence
• helicobacter pylori
• regression
• china
• single-center study.