13C-Urea Breath Test With Infrared Spectroscopy for Diagnosing Helicobacter pylori Infection in Children and Adolescents

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVEStudies support the accuracy of C-urea breath test for diagnosing and confirming cure of Helicobacter pylori infection in children. Three methods are used to assess CO2 increment in expired airmass spectrometry, infrared spectroscopy, and laser-assisted ratio analysis. In this study, the C-urea breath test performed with infrared spectroscopy in children and adolescents was evaluated. METHODSSeventy-five patients (6 months to 18 years old) were included. The gold standard for diagnosis was a positive culture or positive histology and a positive rapid urease test. Tests were performed with 50 mg of C-urea diluted in 100 mL orange juice in subjects weighing up to 30 kg, or with 75 mg of C-urea diluted in 200 mL commercial orange juice for subjects weighing more than 30 kg. Breath samples were collected just before and at 30 minutes after tracer ingestion. The C-urea breath test was considered positive when delta over baseline (DOB) was greater than 4.0%. RESULTSTests were positive for H. pylori in 31 of 75 patients. Sensitivity was 96.8%, specificity was 93.2%, positive predictive value was 90.9%, negative predictive value was 97.6%, and accuracy was 94.7%. CONCLUSIONSC-urea breath test performed with infrared spectroscopy is a reliable, accurate, and noninvasive diagnostic tool for detecting H. pylori infection.