Introduction:

Worldwide, helicobacter pylori is associated with gastrointestinal pathologies, but increasing resistance to antibiotics used for its eradication is causing alarm. This study determined susceptibility of H. pylori to five antibiotics used in eradication therapy in an adult population with recurrent dyspepsia in Quito, Ecuador.

Materials and methods:

After patients provided informed consent, biopsies were taken from the gastric corpus and fundus of 210 patients with dyspepsia. H. pylori isolates identified by biochemical tests were recovered from cultures of biopsy samples. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of metronidazole, clarithromycin, amoxicillin, tetracycline and levofloxacin were tested to indicate susceptibility. All cultures were correlated with the histopathological study.

Results:

H. pylori isolates were recovered from 89 cultures. A kappa of 0.9 was obtained between the culture and the histopathological study. The percentage of strains with antibiotic resistance were 63% for metronidazole, 66% for clarithromycin, 43% for amoxicillin, 36% for tetracycline and 54% for levofloxacin.

Conclusion:

These findings demonstrate high levels of resistance to the antibiotics used for eradication of H. pylori. Several factors including indiscriminate consumption of antibiotics and previous therapy may be involved.

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