(14 mar) Gastric diseases are in Italy among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, with a corresponding impact on national health expenditure, which include hospital recoveries, lab tests and ancillary medications. The increase in life expectancy, and therefore the average age of the population, seems to be related with the spread of intestinal tract diseases. In this context, Francesco Di Mario, Professor of Gastroenterology at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the University of Parma, works to export and implement a series of actions and ad hoc protocols aimed at preventing gastric cancer. Recently,  the professor   attended the " Kyoto Global Consensus Meeting on H. pylori Gastritis," a conference sponsored by the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology with the aim of discussing and approving a series of "protocols" on gastritis, infections by H. pylori and gastric cancer.   Alongside 40 international experts, two Italian researchers  joined professor Di Mario, Massimo Rugge, from the University of Padova, and Franco Bazzoli from the University of Bologna. Di Mario introduced the clinical practice of Gastropanel blood tests for non-invasive diagnosis of gastritis and gastric precancerous lesions. Professor Rugge is an expert on a new method of classification of histological gastritis, named Olga (Organizing Link for Gastric Atrophy). Prof. Bazzoli, finally, is the inventor of the most widely used antibiotic for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori (Triple Therapy).

THE CONFERENCE
During the Japanese  conference 'Kyoto Global Consensus Meeting on H. pylori Gastritis" over 50  protocols have been approved, including the use of serum pepsinogen screenings for gastritis associated with H. pylori infection and the use of Olga. Japan hosted the conference to help in the fight to eradicate H. pylori infection from the entire Japanese archipelago, given the high incidence of gastric cancer in the country and the fact that 98 % of patients with this tumor suffer also of H. pylori infection.