Oral Fluid Antibody Detection in the Diagnosis of Gastric Helicobacter pylori Infection

The aim of this study was to evaluate an enzyme - linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of anti - helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) specific IgG antibodies in specimens of oral fluid. All subjects over the age 18 years undergoing endoscopy for any reason were asked to participate in the study. Two groups of 44 patients in each were selected as HP+ and HP-. At the same time, 5 milliliters of unstimulated saliva was collected from these patients, and the antibody titration against H.P. was evaluated by “ELISA” method. In overall, the level of salivary antibody in H.P+ group was significantly more than those in H.P- group (P<0/001). In the best cut - off, sensitivity and specificity obtained in this test were respectively 88.6% and 81.8% and positive predictive and negative predictive values were determined as 83% and 87.8%, respectively. Positive Likelihood Ratio and negative likelihood ratio were 6.8 and -0/083, respectively. Oral fluid ELISA is relatively a comfortable, fast and noninvasive test for diagnosis of H. pylori infection.