A systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in patients with diabetes

Abstract Background and aims Prior studies have shown that Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori) has the important role in the development of gastrointestinal diseases and diabetes in patients with diabetes. Due to the contradictory results on the prevalence of H. pylori in patients, we carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to discover the pooled prevalence of H. Pylori in patients with diabetes. Methods A systematic literature search was performed utilizing international databases including Medline (PubMed), Web of sciences, Scopus, EMBASE, Cochrane, Ovid and CINHAL to retrieve all cross-sectional studies which had reported H. pylori prevalence in patients with diabetes between January 1990 and March 2019. The random effects models were applied to calculate the pooled prevalence with 95% confidence interval. Results A total of 13 articles were selected for meta-analysis according to PRISMA guideline. The pooled prevalence of H. Pylori was obtained 54% (95% CI: 44%–64%) in patients with diabetes. The highest and least prevalence of H. pylori were associated to Africa (66%; 95%CI: 49%–73%) and USA (15%; 95%CI: 8%−26%). In addition, the rapid urease test and biopsy/histology had the most strength in detecting of the H. pylori infection. The meta-regression analysis demonstrated that H. pylori prevalence is not affected by patients’ age, publication year, study duration, and HbA1C. Conclusion Given that the high prevalence of H. pylori in patients with diabetes and its important role in the development of gastrointestinal diseases and diabetes, treatment and eradication of this bacterium should be considered in patients with diabetes.