[History of the discovery of Helicobacter pylori].

Abstract

The discovery of Helicobacter pylori is one of the greatest achievements in the modern history of gastroenterology, which led to fundamental changes in our approach to the pathogenesis and treatment of peptic ulcer disease. However, the road towards accepting the role of these spiral bacteria in the pathogenesis of certain diseases of the upper digestive tract was long and marked with repeated false interpretations and misunderstandings, even when--in retrospect--many times several researchers were very near to the discovery. The first observations concerning the presence of bacteria in animal/human stomachs dates from the dawn of medical microbiology, when the bacterial etiology of some other diseases (tuberculosis, cholera, dysentery, syphilis) was ascertained. In spite of many bacteriological, experimental, biochemical and therapeutic observations, the causative role of the microorganism in the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer was not recognised even in the case of most elegant demonstrations. Sometimes, head-strong thinking and excessive belief in opinion leaders statements set back the bacterial research. The identification of Helicobacter pylori by Barry J. Marshall and J. Robert Warren in 1983 can not be, in any case, considered as serendipitous: without the endeavour, youthful curiosity, talent and ambition of the former and solid classical knowledge in pathology of the latter, peptic ulcer might be considered even today as an acid-related or psychosomatic disease, as it was during the past century.