Eliminating helicobacter pylori (HP) bacteria from your stomach can help reduce the chances of developing gastric cancer by around 30 percent, doctors told a press conference at the Department of Health yesterday afternoon.
“HP can cause gastric ulcers. A gastric ulcer patient has a greater chance of become a gastric cancer patient,” said Wu Chun-ying (吳俊穎), an attending physician at Taichung Veterans General Hospital’s Division of Gastroenterology.
“Our study showed that the chances for a gastric ulcer patient to become a gastric cancer patient decrease by approximately 30 percent if we eliminate HP from their body, no matter how old the patient is,” Wu said.
He said that his hospital, the National Health Research Institute and Kaohsiung’s I-shou University Hospital conducted the research on more than 80,000 people with gastric ulcers over the past decade.
Approximately half of Taiwan’s population has HP in their body. Of these people, 80 percent will end up developing gastritis, around 15 percent will develop gastric ulcers and about 3 percent will develop gastric cancer.
The research also found that the chances of a gastric ulcer developing into gastric cancer increase every year.
Wu said that antibiotics are the main weapon for eliminating HP. He said that about 85 percent of HP can be eliminated within a week, but the entire course can last between four to eight months.
Gastric ulcer patients older than 35 should have a gastroscope examination and therapy can be carried out immediately if HP is discovered, he said.
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