High prevalence of duodenal ulcer in Indochinese immigrants attending an Australian university hospital

Abstract

Indochinese migrants to Australia appear to have a high prevalence of duodenal ulcer (DU). To examine this hypothesis a 2 year audit of the prevalence of symptomatic DU among patients attending a general hospital was conducted. The last 6 months of this period included a prospective assessment of ulcer risk factors. In Australian‐born patients DU prevalence was 8.4 per 1000 admissions. By comparison, prevalence in Indochinese was 24.6 per 1000 admissions (P < 0.001) with an age standardized prevalence of 30.3 per 1000 (P <0.001). This represented a relative risk in Indochinese of 2.9 using crude data and 3.6 after age standardization. The increased risk was demonstrated only in males: very f..