Background and Aim: Bangladesh is a developing country with a very high prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection, which has been ascribed to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions. It has generally been accepted that the re-infection rate is higher in countries with a high prevalence of H. pylori infection. Short-term follow-up studies support this assumption but no long-term studies are available to confirm or refute this assertion. The present study was aimed to define the long-term H. pylori re-infection rate (6 years after successful eradication) in duodenal ulcer patients. Methods: In a previous study, 90 patients were successfully eradicated for H. pylori and followed-up for 24 months. 17/90 were found to be re-infected (18% re-infection rate per year in the first 12 months) [Gastroenterology 2001;792–798]. The remaining 73 patients were targeted for long-term follow-up. 26/73 were lost to follow-up; 6 symptomatic patients were tested H. pylori positive in the period between 24 and 60 months post-eradication. The remaining 41 patients were evaluated 72 months after successful eradication. The evaluation included clinical history taking, a ¹³C-urea breath test (UBT), and endoscopy. Results: Of the 41 H. pylori-eradicated patients analyzed after 72 months, 16 were H. pylori-positive. If the 6 patients, who were tested positive between 24 and 60 months, are added, the total re-infection cases amount to 22 subjects in the period between 24 and 72 months. Therefore, an overall annual re-infection rate 6 years after eradication of 5.02% can be calculated. Six of the 23 symptomatic patients had duodenal ulcer relapse, 5/6 were H. pylori re-infected and one was H. pylori-negative at 72 months post-treatment. Conclusion: The long-term annual H. pylori re-infection rate in Bangladeshi adults is markedly higher than in Western countries but lower than anticipated. In this study, duodenal ulcer relapse is clearly related to H. pylori re-infection.

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Background/AimsFunctional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs), diagnosed by symptom-based criteria due to lack of biomarkers, need translatedvalidated questionnaires in different languages. As Bengali, the mother tongue of Bangladesh and eastern India, is the seventh most spoken language in the world, we translated and validated the Enhanced Asian Rome III questionnaire (EAR3Q) in this language. MethodsThe EAR3Q was translated in Bengali as per guideline from the Rome Foundation. The translated questionnaire was validated prospectively on Bengali-speaking healthy subjects (HS, n = 30), and patients with functional dyspepsia (FD, n = 35), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS, n = 40) and functional constipation (FC, n = 12) diagnosed by clinicians using the Rome III criteria. The subjects were asked to fill-in the questionnaire again after 2 weeks, to check for its reproducibility. ResultsDuring translation, the original and the backward translated English versions of the questionnaire demonstrated high concordance. Sensitivity of the Bengali questionnaire to diagnose patients with FD, IBS, FC, and HS was 100%, 100%, 75%, and 100%, respectively, considering diagnosis by the clinicians as the gold standard. On test-retest reliability analysis, Kappa values for FD, IBS, FC, and HS were 1.0, 1.0, 0.83, and 1.0, respectively. The Bengali questionnaire detected considerable overlap of FD symptoms among patients with IBS, IBS among patients with FD, and FD among patients with FC, which were not detected by the clinicians. ConclusionsWe successfully translated and validated the EAR3Q in Bengali. We believe that this translated questionnaire will be useful for clinical evaluation and research on FGIDs in the Bengali-speaking population.

IntroductionSince there is a paucity of data on the epidemiology of the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), particularly in rural areas in Asia, we undertook such a study among the population of a rural community in Bangladesh with the aims to (1) determine the prevalence of non-obese and obese NAFLD, (2) compare the sociodemographic clinical and metabolic characteristics between non-obese and obese NAFLD subjects, and (3) determine the risk factors of NAFLD and no-nobese NAFLD.MethodsIn this door-to-door survey, clinical examination, anthropometric measurements, biochemical tests and ultrasonography were performed on the adult population (≥18 years) of three villages in Bangladesh.ResultsOf 1682, 1353 (80.44%) responded. After the exclusion of 48 subjects for alcohol consumption, HBsAg or anti-hepatitis C virus positivity, 1305 ((mean age 41.28±15.10 years, female 908 (69.6%)) were included in the final analysis. On ultrasonography, among the study population, 57 (4.4%) non-obese, 185 (14.2%) obese and, overall, 242 (18.5 %, (male 23.40%, female 16.4%, p=0. 003)) participants had NAFLD. NAFLD was detected in 57/804 (7.1%) of non-obese and 185/501 (36.93%) obese participants. Among the lean subjects, 24/592 (4.1%) had NAFLD. Among NAFLD subjects, 57 (23.55%) were non-obese, and 53 (22%) had raised alanine aminotransferase. On multivariate analysis, age >40 years, male gender, metabolic syndrome (MS), diabetes mellitus (DM), abdominal obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and obesity were found as the risk factors for NAFLD. There were no differences in sociodemographic characteristics, DM, MS, abdominal obesity, hypertension and dyslipidaemia between non-obese and obese NAFLD (all p>0.05).ConclusionIn this community study in Bangladesh, NAFLD was present in 18.5% participants, one-quarter of whom were non-obese. Apart from body mass index, the metabolic profile was comparable between obese and non-obese NAFLD. Public health measures are needed to control and prevent NAFLD and MS and their adverse health consequences.

INTRODUCTION: Functional dyspepsia (FD), although commoner than organic dyspepsia (OD) in-hospital studies, community data, particularly from rural areas, are lacking. We performed a rural community study in Bangladesh with the primary aims to evaluate (i) the prevalence of uninvestigated dyspepsia (UD), FD, and OD and (ii) the risk factors for UD. METHODS: This house-to-house survey was performed using a translated-validated enhanced Asian Rome III questionnaire and endoscopy with Helicobacter pylori tests, including genotyping. RESULTS: Of 3,351/3,559 responders ([94.15%], age 40.41 ± 16.05 years, female 1924 [57.4%]), 547 (16.3%) had UD (female 346 [18%] vs male 201 [14%]; P = 0.002); 201 (6%), 88 (2.6%), and 258 (7.7%) had postprandial distress (PDS), epigastric pain syndromes (EPS) and PDS-EPS overlap, respectively. On multivariate analysis, age >50 years (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.34 [1.07–1.68]), female sex (AOR 1.42 [1.17–1.74]), being married (AOR 1.57 [1.21–2.07]), lower family income (AOR 1.79 [1.43–2.26]), nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use (AOR 7.05 [2.11–23.55]), previous acute gastroenteritis (AOR 5.42 [1.83–16]), and psychological distress (AOR 5.02 [2.87–8.76]) were risk factors for UD. Of 346/547 (63.25%) undergoing endoscopy, 232 (67.05%) and 114 (32.95%) had FD and OD (peptic ulcers [PU] 99 [28.61%] and erosive esophagitis 13 [3.76%]). About 53% of FD subjects had EPS-PDS overlap, 32% had PDS, and only 15% had EPS. H. pylori was detected in 266/342 (78%) dyspeptics (FD 173/230 [75.2%], vs OD 92/114 [82.1%], P = 0.169). DISCUSSION: Sixteen percent, 11% and 5% of rural Bangladeshi Asian adults had UD, FD, and PU, respectively. One-third of UD subjects had OD, mostly PU.