Development of serological assays to identify Helicobacter suis and H. pylori infections

Helicobacter suis, hosted by hogs, is the most prevalent gastric non-Helicobacter pylori Helicobacter species found in humans. Recent studies have suggested that H. suis infection has caused many cases of gastric disease, but the transmission route from hogs remains unclear. Diagnostic methods based on H. suis urease activ-ity often yield negative results, and there is no reliable method for diagnosing H. suis infection in clinical practice without gastric biopsy specimens. This study pre-sents the world's first use of whole-bacterial cell ELISA to simultaneously assess H. suis and H. pylori infections. The ELISAs showed high accuracy, with an area un-der the ROC curve of 0.96,100% sensitivity, 92.6% specificity, 76.9% positive pre-dictive value, and 100% negative predictive value for the H. suis test, and an area under the ROC curve of 0.92, 88.2% sensitivity, 87.5% specificity, 65.2% positive predictive value, and 96.6% negative predictive value for the H. pylori test.

Automated summary

Helicobacter suis, the most common gastric non-Helicobacter pylori Helicobacter species found in humans, has been suggested to cause many cases of gastric disease, but the transmission route from hogs remains unclear. Diagnostic methods for H. suis infection often yield negative results, making it difficult to diagnose without gastric biopsy specimens. This study introduces the use of whole-bacterial cell ELISA to simultaneously assess H. suis and H. pylori infections, with high accuracy and sensitivity.