Helicobacter pylori eradication for gastric MALT lymphoma

Clinical features and efficacy of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication for patients with gastric MALT lymphoma are reviewed. Gastric MALT lymphoma comprises 1-5% of all gastric malignancies, while 40-50% of primary gastric lymphomas. In approximately 90% of cases, H. pylori infection plays the causative role in the pathogenesis, and H. pylori eradication is nowadays the first-line treatment for this disease, which leads to complete disease remission in 60-90% of cases. Predictive factors for resistance to eradication therapy include absence of H. pylori infection, deep invasion in the gastric wall, t(11:18)/API2-MALT1, and etc. Recently a large-scale Japanese multicenter study demonstrated that the long-term clinical outcome of gastric MALT lymphoma after H. pylori eradication is excellent.