Letter to the Editors

Abstract

GP testing for Helicobacter pyloriSirs, The relevance of testing for Helicobacter pylori in general practice continues to increase, because of the unequivocal evidence that this infection causes peptic ulcer disease and because testing in patients with dyspepsia can decrease endoscopy utilization. 1 Furthermore, if non-ulcer dyspepsia is shown to be related to the infection in the large clinical trials now in progress, then even wider application of testing for H. pylori is likely to be recommended.The development of the new in-house rapid test kits for detection of H. pylori is very attractive for general practitioners, because it allows them to immediately manage patients presenting with dyspepsia.It is, however, essential to ensure that new diagnostic tools, such as the Helisal test, have adequate sensitivity and speci®city.In order to do this, it is absolutely vital that the test kit is compared with an appropriate standard.If the prevalence of H. pylori infection in the background population is 25% then, even with a test that has a sensitivity and speci®city of 85%, half of the positive tests will be false positives. 2Therefore, a poor test may lead to over treatment, unnecessary anxiety or inappropriate and expensive follow-up diagnostic evaluations.In view of this, we are concerned about the conclusions reached by Jones et al. 3 In this study, the Helisal rapid blood test kit was only evaluated against two