Helicobacter pylori eradication cannot reduce the risk of gastric cancer in patients with intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia: evidence from a meta-analysis.

Background: The effect of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication on gastric cancer (GC) prevention is controversial. Intestinal metaplasia (IM) seems to be a "point of no return" in the precancerous cascade. We performed a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to illustrate this issue.

Methods: The MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library were searched for relevant RCTs that were published in any language up to March 2014. By dividing participants into subgroups based on their baseline diagnoses as group

Results: Ten studies from eight RCTs were included in this analysis, for a total of 7,955 participants. H. pylori treatment compared with control significantly reduced the risk of GC, with a pooled RR of 0.64 (95% CI, 0.48-0.85). Subgroup analysis for patients with non-atrophic gastritis, atrophic gastritis (

Conclusions: Our results suggested that patients with Intestinal metaplasia or dysplasia could not benefit from the H. pylori treatment on the risk of GC.