Korean J Lab Med.  2006 Apr;26(2):81-85. 10.3343/kjlm.2006.26.2.81.

Comparison Between a New Low Dose Urea Capsule Test and the Conventional UBiT(R) Tablet Test for the Detection of Helicobacter pylori Infection

• Park SJ
• Park YH
• Lee SI
• Lee DC
• Yong D
• Kim JH

• KMID: 2238895
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3343/kjlm.2006.26.2.81

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The urea breath test (UBT) is regarded as a highly reliable, noninvasive tool for diagnosing Helicobacter pylori infection. We compared a recently developed low-dose 38 mg 13C-urea capsule, which is able to eliminate oral urease effects and does not require positional changes during the test, with the conventionally used 100 mg 13C-urea tablet method.
METHODS
Thirty-nine volunteers were tested under informed consent with both 13C-UBT methods, Helifinder(R) and UBiT-IR300(R), with a minimum 2-week washout period. The pre-ingestion and 20-minute post-ingestion breath samples were analyzed with an isotope ratio mass spectrometer for Helifinder, and a nondispersive isotope-selective infrared spectrophotometer for UBiT samples.
RESULTS
Helifinder method showed excellent agreement with UBiT among 19 positive and 20 negative cases (weighted kappa value, 1.0). Helifinder results (y) showed good agreement but with a proportional bias compared to UBiT results (x) by Passing and Bablok method (y=0.551 X -0.255, r=0.74, P<0.0001).
CONCLUSIONS
Since the low-dose 38 mg 13C-urea capsule (Helifinder) test, which is more convenient and economic, showed comparable results with the conventional UBiT method, it can be used as an alternative for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection.

Keyword

Urea breath test; Helicobacter pylori; Low-dose urea

MeSH Terms

Bias (Epidemiology)
Breath Tests
Diagnosis
Helicobacter pylori*
Helicobacter*
Informed Consent
Urea*
Urease
Volunteers
Urea
Urease

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1. Passing and Bablok comparison of Helifinder® and UBiT® 13C values (‰). Dashed lines show the 95% confidence limits of the regression line.

Reference

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