AWWA WQTC56952

In the U.S. alone, about 5,000,000 people are diagnosed annually with ulcers, 1,000,000 are hospitalized, 40,000 undergo surgery, and 6,500 die from ulcer-related complications (Poms, 2001: Levin, 1998). Once thought to be a result of stress and/or diet, ulcers are now almost exclusively attributed to infection with the bacteria Helicobacter pylori. Laboratory diagnosis of H. pylori has now become a standard procedure in the management of dyspeptic patients. Although the source of human infection is not known, transmission of H. pylori to humans has been linked to groundwater by investigators (Hegarty, 1999; Hulten, 1995 & 1998) who found it in a majority of samples tested. Methods of detection used in those studies were relatively complex and costly (polymerase chain reaction; immunomagnetic separation) and didn't determine if the detected organisms were in fact viable. This study focused on the development of a plating media that selects viable organisms from samples containing mixed microbial populations, in order to facilitate routine screening of ground and/or surface water for the presence of H. pylori. Efforts have resulted in a formulation that allows the growth of Helicobacter while subsequently excluding background contaminants such as gram positive cocci and bacilli, enterobacteriaceae, gram negative bacilli, fungi, and pseudomonads. The laboratory-tested plating media was used to survey a cross section of Wisconsin groundwaters, including wells used by ulcer-sufferers, to further evaluate the efficacy of the media for recovering H. pylori from water samples and to begin a database of H. pylori occurrence. Includes 22 references, tables, figures.