Recently, H. pylori eradication has been proposed as a primary preventive strategy to reduce GC incidence [19]. All the evidence suggests

that population screening and treatment for H. pylori in a subset of subjects without baseline precancerous gastric lesions may significantly decrease the development of GC [20-22]. However, although approximately half of the world’s population is infected with H. pylori, only about 1–3% of infected individuals will eventually develop GC [23, 24]. This implies that general screening and eradication of H. pylori will be performed among more than 3 billion infected people worldwide for cancer prophylaxis if we LDK378 do not identify which groups are at high risk, which is unrealistic due to methodological, logistical, and financial limitations. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish predictable biomarkers and screened patterns to select from H. pylori-infected persons that will identify them as high-risk

of GC, in whom further bacterium eradication could be carried out to reduce GC morbidity and mortality. Several potential virulence factors have been suggested to play a role in H. pylori pathogenesis. Motility, conferred to the bacteria by several sheathed flagella, is regarded as one of those principal virulence factors for the onset of colonization. The flagella consist of two different flagellin proteins in varying amounts, with the majority being FlaA [25]. Molecular and cellular studies have elucidated that flaA gene mutants Tamoxifen purchase result in pathogen motility alteration, which then influence the pathogenesis process in vitro [25, 26]. However, it has not been

demonstrated whether the immune response to FlaA is associated with risk of GC in the population. In the current case–control study, we aim to evaluate the association between seropositivity of antibody against H. pylori FlaA and risk 上海皓元医药股份有限公司 of GC and to explore the application of serum FlaA antibody as a novel biomarker in screening and eradication of H. pylori for GC prevention. A hospital-based case–control study was performed in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China, where a standardized mortality rate of gastric cancer was 20.44 per 100,000 in 2004–2005 [27]. Briefly, 232 patients with first diagnoses of gastric cancer were recruited at the Cancer Hospital of Harbin Medical University and were enrolled between March and June 2010 based on pathological diagnosis. Blood samples were collected prior to any therapeutic procedures, such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. In addition, 182 healthy individuals were chosen based on a physical examination from Harbin Center for Disease Control between April and July 2010, as well as 82 cancer-free patients chosen from the neurology department at the Forth Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University between March and May 2011 as controls, respectively.