Xia and Talley suggested that HP could be involved in the development of gastric cancer by inducing apoptosis of epithelial cells, thus leading to atrophic gastritis and achlorhydria.35 As well as the fact that we did not find differences in the apoptotic index in our cases, we showed an increase in apoptosis in HP-positive patients, and a decrease in the cagA-positive strain. Here, S100A8 is linked to chronic atrophic gastritis.