Sex differences in Helicobacter pylori infection and recurrence rate among 81,754 Chinese adults: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: To compare the sex differences of Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection rate and 1-year recurrence rate. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on the prevalence of HP infection in 81,754 people who underwent physical examination in physical examination centers and outpatient clinics of the Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Second People's Hospital of Zhangye City, Tianshui City Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, the First and Second Department of The First Hospital of Lanzhou University Physical Examination Center, from March 2010 to December 2019. Among them, 53,771 (65.77%) were males (18-91 years old) and 27,983 (34.23%) were females (18-94 years old). According to age, they were divided into young group, middle-aged group and old group. 1448 asymptomatic infected patients were selected and treated with bismuth-containing quadruple drug eradication therapy for 2 weeks. The eradication rate and recurrence rate after 1 year were compared between males and females. RESULTS: The overall infection rate was 49.59%, including 49.74% in males and 49.3% in females. The risk of infection in young women was lower than that in men (OR = 0.908, 95%CI: 0.868-0.95, P < 0.01), the risk of infection in older women was higher than that in men (OR = 1.137, 95%CI: 1.041-1.243, P < 0.01). The female infection rate was positively correlated with age from 18 to 60, and Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0.825 (P < 0.01). The overall eradication rate was 84.67% in intention-to-treat analysis (ITT) and 88.46% in protocol analysis (PP). The eradication rates of ITT and PP in the older group were 78.38% and 82.27%, respectively, which were lower than 87.25% and 89.39% in the male group (P < 0.05). The 1-year overall recurrence rate was 3.86%, including 2.82% in males and 5.44% in females (P < 0.05), female was a risk factor for recurrence after eradication after controlling for age (OR = 2.177, 95%CI 1.166-4.066, P < 0.05). There were no obvious adverse reactions during the treatment. CONCLUSION: There is a positive linear correlation between HP infection rate and age increase in women. Older women have the characteristics of high HP infection rate, low eradication rate and high recurrence rate.