The ethnic distribution of sessile serrated polyps in the United States is inversely associated with Helicobacter pylori prevalence.

AIM: Little is known about the epidemiology of sessile serrated polyps (SSP). Our study aimed to investigate the influence of Helicobacter pylori gastritis and patient demographic characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity) on the prevalence of SSP using a large national database of patients undergoing bi-directional endoscopy.

METHOD: De-identified patient data were extracted from the Miraca Life Sciences electronic database of histopathological reports. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, the influence of H. pylori gastritis and demographic characteristics on the occurrence of SSP were expressed as odds ratios (OR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI).

RESULTS: The total study population comprised 228 506 subjects, of whom 28 890 carried a diagnosis of H. pylori gastritis and 11 285 SSP. Age (OR 4.35, 95% CI: 3.82-4.96), female gender (0.92, 0.88-0.95) and H. pylori gastritis (0.94, 0.88-0.99) exerted the strongest influence on the occurrence of SSP. In comparison with the population comprising Caucasians and African Americans, SSP were less common among subjects of Hispanic (0.67, 0.62-0.73), East Asian (0.59, 0.50-0.69), Indian (0.43, 0.27-0.64) or Middle Eastern descent (0.61, 0.41-0.87). All these ethnic subgroups were also characterized by a higher prevalence of H. pylori than the comparison group. A low prevalence of H. pylori was significantly associated with a high prevalence of SSP (R2  = 0.82, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION: The prevalence of SSP within the United States is characterized by a marked ethnic variation. The inverse correlation between the prevalence of H. pylori and SSP suggests that gastric infection with H. pylori may be partly responsible for the observed ethnic distribution of SSP.