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Background: In clinical practice there is the need to utilise a time saving questionnaire to assess the quality of life., Aims: To establish the validity of the SF-12 questionnaire in chronic pancreatitis patients and to identify the predictors capable of modifying the physical and mental summaries in these patients., Questionnaires: SF-12 and SF-36 questionnaires were used., Subjects: One hundred and forty-one outpatients with proven chronic pancreatitis. The data of 141 sex- and age-matched Italian subjects of two normative groups (61,434 Italian subjects for SF-12 and 2031 Italian subjects for SF-36) were used as controls., Results: Chronic pancreatitis patients had the SF-12 physical and mental component summaries significantly related to the SF-36 physical and mental component summaries (P<0.001). The presence of pancreatic pain and non-pancreatic surgery accounted for 41.3% in the formation of the PCS-36 score and 37.2% in that of the PCS-12 score, respectively. Gender, BMI and pancreatic pain accounted for 15.3% of the information in the formation of the MCS-36 and for 14.7% in that of the MCS-12; using these clinical variables, the loss of information in applying the SF-12 instead of the SF-36 was very low (4.1 and 0.6% for the PCS and the MCS, respectively)., Conclusions: The SF-12 is a good alternative to the SF-36 in assessing the quality of life in chronic pancreatitis.

Background: Several tests have been proposed for evaluating dyspeptic symptoms and their relationship to the underlying gastric disease. Serum pepsinogens and gastrin-17 are known to be useful biomarkers for the detection of gastric pathologies., Aim: To evaluate the capability of screening dyspeptic patients in the primary care by analyses of serum pepsinogens I (sPGI) and II (sPGII), gastrin-17 (sG-17) and the IgG anti-Helicobacter pylori antibodies (IgG-Hp)., Patients and Methods: Three hundred and sixty-two consecutive patients with dyspeptic symptoms (208 females, mean age 50.6 +/- 16 years, range 18-88 years) referred by general practitioners for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were enrolled. A blood sample was taken from each subject for IgG-Hp, sPGI, sPGII and sG-17 analyses., Results: Two hundred and eighty-seven patients had a complete screening; of these, 132 resulted positive for Hp infection. Patients with atrophic chronic gastritis showed significantly lower serum pepsinogen I levels and sPGI/sPGII ratio than patients with non-atrophic chronic gastritis. Moreover, by calculating the values of sPGI by sG-17 and sG-17 by sPGII/sPGI, subjects with atrophic chronic gastritis could be distinguished from those with non-atrophic chronic gastritis and from those with normal mucosa, respectively. sG-17 levels were found to be a useful biomarker for the detection of antral atrophic gastritis, while the combination of sPGI, the sPGI/sPGII ratio and sG-17 was found effective in identifying corpus atrophy., Conclusion: A panel composed of PGI, PGII, G-17 and IgG-Hp could be used as a first approach in the 'test and scope' and/or 'test and treat' strategy in the primary care management of dyspeptic patients.

Introduction: Health-related quality of life is becoming a major issue in the evaluation of any therapeutic intervention in patients with chronic or hard to cure diseases., Aims: To assess the quality of life in patients with chronic pancreatitis, the majority of whom have had the disease for a long time, and to evaluate which factors linked to the disease are able to influence the quality of life., Subjects and Methods: A total of 190 consecutive patients (157 males, 33 females; mean age 58.6+/-12.7 years, range 18-92 years) with proven chronic pancreatitis were enrolled. The SF-36 questionnaire was used for assessing the health-related quality of life., Results: The z-scores of the eight domains of the patients with chronic pancreatitis were significantly negative indicating an overall impairment of the quality of life when compared to the Italian normative sample. Pancreatic pain was the unique clinical variable able to significantly impair all eight domains of the SF-36, while Wirsung dilation and diabetes were negatively related to some physical and mental domains. The body mass index was the unique variable positively related with some SF-36 domains., Conclusions: Pain may be considered the most important factor affecting the quality of life of chronic pancreatitis patients; moreover, alimentary and metabolic factors deserve more attention in improving the quality of life of these subjects.

Background: One-week triple therapy is the most frequently recommended treatment for Helicobacter pylori infection. Eradication rate is satisfactory, nevertheless is advisable to look for more effective therapies., Aim: To test the efficacy of a standard triple therapy plus bovine lactoferrin in the eradication of H. pylori infection., Patients and Methods: One hundred and fifty consecutive H. pylori positive patients, suffering from dyspeptic symptoms were recruited in a 7-day triple therapy open randomised single centre study with rabeprazole, clarithromycin, tinidazole, bovine lactoferrin (group A) or rabeprazole, clarithromycin, tinidazole (group B), or a 10-day therapy with rabeprazole, clarithromycin, tinidazole (group C). H. pylori status was assessed 8 weeks after the end of the treatment by means of a 13C-urea breath test or a H. pylori stool antigen-test., Results: Eradication rates (intention to treat/per protocol) were: group A (92.2/95.9%), group B (71.2/72.5%) and group C (70.2/75%). The efficacy of triple therapy added with lactoferrin was significantly higher than other two regimens (p=0.01, intention to treat analysis; p=0.005, per protocol analysis)., Conclusion: These results suggest that lactoferrin tested in the present study was effective in curing H. pylori and could be a new agent to assist the antimicrobials in the eradication of the bacterium.