Comparison of the Efficacy of 12-day Concomitant Quadruple Therapy versus 14-day High dose Dual Therapy as a First-line Eradication Regimen.

Background/aims: () is the most prevalent infection in the world and is strongly associated with gastric adenocarcinoma, lymphoma and gastric or duodenal ulcers. Different regimens have been used for eradication. We aimed to compare the efficacy of two different regimens as first-line eradication regimens, in an area with high antibiotic resistance.

Methods: In this RCT, we assigned 223 patients with infection, who were naïve to treatment. They were randomly divided into two groups to receive either 12-day concomitant quadruple therapy (consisting of pantoprazole 40 mg, amoxicillin 1 g, clarithromycin 500 mg, and metronidazole 500 mg every 12 hours) or 14-day high dose dual therapy (consisting of esomeprazole 40 mg and amoxicillin 1 g TDS). eradication was assessed eight weeks after the end of treatment.

Results: eradication rate by PP analysis for 12-day concomitant quadruple therapy and 14-day high dose dual therapy were 90.4% and 79.1%, respectively (p=0.02). According to ITT analysis, the eradication rates were 86.2% and 76.3%, respectively (p=0.06). Adverse drug reactions were 12.3% in high dose dual therapy and 36.8% in concomitant quadruple therapy (p<0.001).

Conclusions: Twelve-day concomitant therapy seems to be an acceptable regimen for first-line eradication in Iran, a country with a high rate of antibiotic resistance. Although, high dose dual therapy did not result in an ideal eradication rate, but it had fewer drug side effects than the 12-day concomitant regimen.