The negative association between inflammatory bowel disease and Helicobacter pylori seropositivity

Background: The role of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in inflammatory bowel disease is a controversial argument. The initial theory of this study was that Helicobacter is a risk factor for inflammatory bowel disease. In this study, we investigated the coincidence of H. pylori exposure and IBDs. Methods: This case-control study has been done in Babol, teaching Hospitals; 60 newly diagnosed IBD cases without any Helicobacter eradicating treatment and 120 control patients without inflammatory bowel disease evidence in biopsy, investigated for H. pylori exposure by IgA and IgG ELISA tests. Clinical information, demographics and ELISA test results have been analyzed using SPSS.Version.18 (level of significance was less than 0.05). Results: Mean age of case group was 42.27±13.64 years; in control group it was 45.52±13.83 years. There was a significant difference between the case and control groups in IgG study of the following subgroups: age under 30, females, males, urban, higher education level and BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 (p-value was respectively; 0.004, 0.014, 0.047, 0.002, 0.013, 0.003). On the basis of logistic regression; IBD was less common in females, patients with lower education and patients with positive result of IgG (p-value was respectively 0.002, 0.013, 0.010). Conclusion: As a result of this study, Helicobacter pylori exposure, may could play a protective role against inflammatory bowel disease

SARS-CoV-2 and Stroke Characteristics: A Report From the Multinational COVID-19 Stroke Study Group

International audienceBackground and Purpose: Stroke is reported as a consequence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in several reports. However, data are sparse regarding the details of these patients in a multinational and large scale. Methods: We conducted a multinational observational study on features of consecutive acute ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage, and cerebral venous or sinus thrombosis among SARS-CoV-2–infected patients. We further investigated the risk of large vessel occlusion, stroke severity as measured by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, and stroke subtype as measured by the TOAST (Trial of ORG 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment) criteria among patients with acute ischemic stroke. In addition, we explored the neuroimaging findings, features of patients who were asymptomatic for SARS-CoV-2 infection at stroke onset, and the impact of geographic regions and countries’ health expenditure on outcomes. Results: Among the 136 tertiary centers of 32 countries who participated in this study, 71 centers from 17 countries had at least 1 eligible stroke patient. Of 432 patients included, 323 (74.8%) had acute ischemic stroke, 91 (21.1%) intracranial hemorrhage, and 18 (4.2%) cerebral venous or sinus thrombosis. A total of 183 (42.4%) patients were women, 104 (24.1%) patients were <55 years of age, and 105 (24.4%) patients had no identifiable vascular risk factors. Among acute ischemic stroke patients, 44.5% (126 of 283 patients) had large vessel occlusion; 10% had small artery occlusion according to the TOAST criteria. We observed a lower median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (8 [3–17] versus 11 [5–17]; P =0.02) and higher rate of mechanical thrombectomy (12.4% versus 2%; P <0.001) in countries with middle-to-high health expenditure when compared with countries with lower health expenditure. Among 380 patients who had known interval onset of the SARS-CoV-2 and stroke, 144 (37.8%) were asymptomatic at the time of admission for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Conclusions: We observed a considerably higher rate of large vessel occlusions, a much lower rate of small vessel occlusion and lacunar infarction, and a considerable number of young stroke when compared with the population studies before the pandemic. The rate of mechanical thrombectomy was significantly lower in countries with lower health expenditures