Background: Accumulating evidence for considering HP as a causal factor for gastric cancer comes from recent epidemiologic studies, the advent of an animal model of gastric cancer and from new insights in to the biological mechanisms for gastric carcinogenesis.
Aim: The purpose of this review is to analyze recent data from the literature on this relationship and try to define what kinds of preventive measures could be proposed
Methods: We conducted a review of the literature through the interrogation of the MEDLINE database using a query documentary by combining the Boolean (AND) keywords (MeSH) as follows: Helicobacter pylori, stomach neoplasms.
Results: HP infection, host genetic background, food regimen are known to be involved in this cancer. There is no definite clinical evidence of the benefifit of eradication on cancer risk in humans due to the lack of randomized controlled studies in large populations. There fore HP should be eradicated in selected patients, such as patients'relatives with documented gastric cancer as well as patients having another gastrointestinal cancer.