HP and peptic ulcer disease: Our research group has shown that in 151 partial-gastrectomy peptic ulcer patients, after a mean interval of 25 years from surgery, there was a 10-fold increase in the prevalence of normal mucosa in HP-negative (22.0%) vs. HP-positive (2.4%) patients, and the prevalence of intestinal metaplasia was four times higher in HP-positive than in HP-negative patients (19.6% vs 4.6%) [83].