Exhaled nitric oxide as a potential marker for detecting non-ulcer dyspepsia and peptic ulcer disease.

Nitric oxide (NO) plays a key role in the development of peptic ulcer disease (PUD). Conversely, the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori colonizes the human stomach and contributes to the development of non-ulcer dyspepsia (NUD) and PUD. However, the underlying relation between molecular NO in exhaled breath and H. pylori-associated NUD and PUD remains largely unknown. Here, we found that the excretion kinetics of NO profiles in exhaled breath are altered markedly in H. pylori-infected NUD and PUD subjects. In our observations, PUD led to considerably higher enrichments of NO in exhaled breath compared to NUD, thus revealing a potential link between exhaled NO and ulcer and non-ulcer complications. Our findings therefore suggest that molecular NO in exhaled breath could be used as a potential biomarker for non-invasive diagnosis and selective differentiation of NUD from PUD. Our observations also highlight that alterations of NO in the gastric environment can play an important role in the pathogenesis of peptic ulcers and thus may provide a new strategy for precise evolution of the actual disease state without the need for endoscopic biopsy, even after the eradication of H. pylori infection.