The role of <i>Helicobacter pylori</i> in complex human comorbidity

Abstract

One of the main features of modern medicine is the fact that the majority of somatic diseases lose their mononosological nature and acquire the status of comorbidity. Examining complex comorbidity is a priority for specialists in various medical disciplines. Accomplishing scientific research and obtaining nessesary data as well as their further comprehension allowed to formulate major directions for investigating a comorbidity issue. Primarily, it concerns studying rate and general patterns for combination of pathologies, determining features of clinical course and strategy for using drug therapy. Comorbidity issue is rarely considered among infectious diseases. It should be understood that a term “comorbidity” refers to the state of the concomitant detection of several diseases. This terminology may and should be applied to combined somatic and infectious pathology envisioned as a complex pathological condition, but with some additions. The term “complex comorbidity”, in our opinion, is also valid both in case of either simultaneous or sequential presence of psychosomatic pathology and monoetiological infection, as well as somatic pathology and polyetiological infection. After H. pylori was discovered, over the past decades a significant number of studies have emerged regarding a role of helicobacter in etiology and pathogenesis of a large number of somatic diseases. The accumulated knowledge has determined that Helicobacteriosis is the most common bacterial infection in human, and H. pylori is considered as the cause for developing pathology of the gastrointestinal tract as well as other host organs and systems. At the current stage in the development of medicine, H. pylori is not only associated with occurrence of gastric and duodenal ulcers, because the microbe-linked pathogenic effect is not limited only to diseases of the gastroduodenal area. Helicobacter pylori infection can be considered as a trigger in emerging somatic pathology such as chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcer, MALT lymphoma, and gastric adenocarcinoma. These conditions may be referred to the status of complex comorbidity. To date, association links between Helicobacter pylori and idiopathic iron deficiency anemia, as well as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, have been reliably determined. Thus, various clinical aspects of H. pylori infection are heterogeneous and have a wide range of pathological conditions, which evidence base is replenished with data both in terms of pathogenesis and clinical components.

Keywords

• comorbidity
• helicobacter pylori
• systemic lupus erythematosus
• progressive systemic sclerosis
• rheumatoid arthritis
• raynaud syndrome
• peptic ulcer