H. pylori can be cultured in a "candle jar" on blood agar or "chocolate agar". These are common media, which can be obtained from any microbiology laboratory. Remember that H. pylori likes to have lots of moisture and also likes to have reduced amounts of oxygen with extra carbon dioxide. Typically this can be obtained in a "candle jar". A candle jar is made by placing wet paper towels in the bottom of an airtight container. The petri-dishes are placed on top of the wet towels, and above all this a candle is placed and set alight before closing the lid. The candle uses about half of the oxygen in the jar and replaces it with carbon dioxide. Usually H. pylori will be detected after 3 days of culture in this setting.

It must be remembered that H. pylori is a pathogen, which means that it can potentially cause an infection in humans or animals. Because of this it is strictly controlled in the laboratory and the usual precautions have to been taken when handling this type of bacteria. It has also been named as a potential carcinogen as its connection with gastric ulceration has been shown to link to gastric cancers and as such should be strictly controlled in the non-clinical laboratory setting.

Re: Tonight I saw a report on your success with treating ulcers on Today Tonight. It encouraged me to seek you out about my own long term condition. I have undergone treatments for it in Germany and Switzerland, but neither suceeded to cure my condition completely. I cannot eat certain foods otherwise my condition flares up. I want to know if it would be possible to take part in your research and a trial subject.

Answer: Thank you kindly, AH,
My name is Dr Kazufumi Kimura, and I work with Professor Marshall. I’ll try to answer your e-mail as best I can.
You live in Australia. Your symptom was not clearly mentioned but it flares up when you eat certain foods. You tried to eradicate H. pylori twice but it failed and you want to participate in our re-infection study. Answer: We are recruiting only healthy asymptomatic volunteers who have H. pylori infection. The infection should not be drug resistant. Your infection was probably drug resistant because you have failed eradication twice already. So at present you do not qualify for this research project. However, we will contact you and arrange something so please do not despair.

My other comments are as follows:
There are other causes for gastritis symptoms besides H.pylori infection. Your symptom flares up when you eat certain foods. In that case it may be that your symptom is not caused by H.pylori infection. Eosinophilic gastritis is a conceivable type of gastritis for your symptom. It becomes exacerbated when the patient takes certain food, but is frequently accompanied by itchy eruption on the skin. Please refer to the web page below for this information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophilic_gastroenteritis
If you have a good reason for eradication of you H. pylori infection, please contact us at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital ext 3207 during working hours and we can advise. Also consult your GP and ask him or her to fax a brief letter and test results to our office at 93464816.

Sincerely yours,
Dr Kazufumi Kimura
20/06/2008

© Kazufumi Kimura 2008