Gastric cancer prevention by community eradication of Helicobacter pylori: a cluster-randomized controlled trial

Pan KF, Li WQ, Zhang L, Liu WD, Ma JL, Zhang Y, Ulm K, Wang JX, Zhang L, Bajbouj M, Zhang LF, Li M, Vieth M, Quante M, Wang LH, Suchanek S, Mejías-Luque R, Xu HM, Fan XH, Han X, Liu ZC, Zhou T, Guan WX, Schmid RM, Gerhard M, Classen M, You WC (2024)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

Nature Medicine Nature Publishing Group

DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03153-w

Abstract

Gastric cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in China. Affecting more than 40% of the world’s population, Helicobacter pylori is a major risk factor for gastric cancer. While previous clinical trials indicated that eradication of H. pylori could reduce gastric cancer risk, this remains to be shown using a population-based approach. We conducted a community-based, cluster-randomized, controlled, superiority intervention trial in Linqu County, China, with individuals who tested positive for H. pylori using a 13C-urea breath test randomly assigned to receiving either (1) a 10-day, quadruple anti-H. pylori treatment (comprising 20 mg of omeprazole, 750 mg of tetracycline, 400 mg of metronidazole and 300 mg of bismuth citrate) or (2) symptom alleviation treatment with a single daily dosage of omeprazole and bismuth citrate. H. pylori-negative individuals did not receive any treatment. We examined the incidence of gastric cancer as the primary outcome. A total of 180,284 eligible participants from 980 villages were enrolled over 11.8 years of follow-up, and a total of 1,035 cases of incident gastric cancer were documented. Individuals receiving anti-H. pylori therapy showed a modest reduction in gastric cancer incidence in intention-to-treat analyses (hazard ratio 0.86, 95% confidence interval 0.74–0.99), with a stronger effect observed for those having successful H. pylori eradication (hazard ratio 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.69–0.96) than for those who failed treatment. Moderate adverse effects were reported in 1,345 participants during the 10-day treatment. We observed no severe intolerable adverse events during either treatment or follow-up. The findings suggest the potential for H. pylori mass screening and eradication as a public health policy for gastric cancer prevention. Chinese Clinical Trial Registry identifier: ChiCTR-TRC-10000979.

Authors with CRIS profile

Michael Vieth Professur für Allgemeine Pathologie am Medizincampus Oberfranken

Involved external institutions

Technische Universität München (TUM) DE Germany (DE) Beijing Cancer Hospital CN China (CN) Univerzita Karlova v Praze / Charles University in Prague CZ Czech Republic (CZ)

How to cite

APA:

Pan, K.F., Li, W.Q., Zhang, L., Liu, W.D., Ma, J.L., Zhang, Y.,... You, W.C. (2024). Gastric cancer prevention by community eradication of Helicobacter pylori: a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Nature Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03153-w

MLA:

Pan, Kai Feng, et al. "Gastric cancer prevention by community eradication of Helicobacter pylori: a cluster-randomized controlled trial." Nature Medicine (2024).

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