MedWire News: For patients infected with the stomach ulcer bug Helicobacter pylori, a 10-day sequential eradication treatment may be more effective than standard triple eradication therapy, researchers have found.

Previous studies have suggested that treatment is successful in less than 80% of Helicobacter pylori-infected patients who undergo standard triple eradication therapy, which involves a week of daily treatment with two antibiotics and a stomach acid suppressing drug called a proton pump inhibitor, explain Dr Xavier Calvet, from Institut Universitari Parc Tauli in Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues.

However, they add that initial research suggests that a 10-day, sequential eradication treatment for Helicobacter pylori may be more effective than standard eradication therapy.

To investigate further, the researchers studied 139 patients, aged an average of 50 years, who received a proton pump inhibitor twice daily for the first 5 days, followed by a proton pump inhibitor plus two antibiotics twice daily for the next 5 days.

Eight weeks later, the researchers found that Helicobacter pylori had been successfully eradicated in 117 out of 129 patients who completed the study.

The researchers therefore calculated that 10-day, sequential Helicobacter pylori eradication treatment had a success rate of 84-90% - significantly higher than standard triple eradication therapy.

None of the patients stopped treatment due to side effects, and just 14 patients reported mild-to-moderate side effects, which resolved by the end of treatment.

"Sequential treatment may be a valid alternative to current first-line treatment for the eradication of Helicobacter pylori," Dr Calvet and team conclude in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. "It achieves high rates of eradication and is well tolerated."

However, they add that further trials of the therapy are needed "before a generalised change is recommended in first-line Helicobacter pylori treatment".

But they say: "In the meantime it appears well suited for use in settings where the efficacy of triple therapy is unacceptably low.