Authors
Yutong Liu, Yanlin Zeng, Jingxiao Hu, Xiaolan Li
Published in
Journal of oral microbiology. Volume 18. Issue 1. Pages 2739484. Epub Oct 07, 2026.
Abstract
The oral cavity is a proposed extra-gastric reservoir of Helicobacter pylori, but site-stratified oral prevalence has not been updated since the 2025 dental-plaque synthesis of Anand et al., and 2024-2026 evidence remains unincorporated.
We pooled oral H. pylori prevalence by site from 53 site-observations (49 unique study cohorts; 6,247 participants; 24 countries; 1989-2026): 33 plaque site-observations from Anand et al. (2025) plus 20 site-observations from our independent update, each verified at the abstract or full-text level. Random-effects (DerSimonian-Laird, logit) pooling with prediction intervals, subgroup, meta-regression and Egger analyses was used.
Pooled dental-plaque prevalence was 50.2% (95% CI 43.4-57.0%; I2 = 92.2%; 39 studies) versus 32.4% (95% CI 21.2-45.9%; I2 = 97.2%; 10 studies) in saliva; caries, oral-mixed, tongue data were too sparse to pool. Plaque prevalence was numerically higher than saliva (ratio 1.55; 95% CI 0.82-2.93). PCR (45.3%) exceeded culture (39.7%); regional prevalence ranged from 31.4% (Western Pacific) to 63.0% (South-East Asia).
Dental plaque is the dominant oral H. pylori reservoir (pooled prevalence > 50%), suggesting that plaque-targeted decontamination merits evaluation as an adjunct to gastric eradication rather than being an established indication; extreme heterogeneity warrants confirmation in harmonised multi-site studies.
PMID:
42852219
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Oct 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 7
- Comments 0