Background: Helicobacter pylori is one of the most common chronic bacterial infections worldwide. It causes gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric cancers and gastric malt lymphoma. The outcome of the infection may be associated with virulence-associated genotypes. The aim of the study was to determine the association between H. pylori genotypes and histopathological findings on biopsies obtained from endoscopy referral patients of Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi, Benue State Nigeria.
Methods: Eighty (80) patients referred for endoscopy were enrolled and two biopsy samples were collected from each of them. One was placed in Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) broth and was used for PCR while the second sample was placed in 10% formal saline and was used for histopathological examination following standard techniques.
Results: Histopathological examination showed that 30 (N = 80; 37.5%) of the patients had chronic gastritis, while 50 (N = 80; 62.5%) had normal mucosa. While there was no significant difference between the histopathological findings and H. pylori genotypes using 2-factor ANOVA (p = 0.22), there was however significant difference in the occurrence of the different vacA genotypes (p = 0.005).
Conclusion: In this study, H. pylori genotypes was not associated with histopathological findings.
Keywords: Gastric biopsies, Helicobacter pylori, Histology, Immunohistochemistry, Genotypes.