Helicobacter pylori-positive functional dyspepsia in elderly patients - Comparison of two treatments

The association of Helicobacter pylori and functional dyspepsia is not well defined. The role of H. pylori on dyspeptic symptoms is still controversia l. The aim of this study is to confirm the efficacy of H. pylori eradicatio n by two different commonly used treatment regimens, as well as to examine the improvement of the dyspeptic symptoms by eradicating H. pylori. H. pylo ri functional dyspepsia is prevalent in people over 60 years old. In this a ge group we treated 126 patients with bismuth plus metronidazole and amoxic illin (group A, 67 patients) versus omeprazole plus amoxicillin (group B, 5 9 patients). Results were statistically analyzed utilizing the Wilcoxon sig ned-rank test, McNemer test and chi-square test; P < 0.05 was considered si gnificant. Two months after the end of therapy we observed an eradication r ate of 66.1% in group A vs 64.3% in group B. All treated patients showed im provement in symptomatology. Although there was no significant difference b etween patients in whom H. pylori was or was not eradicated within the resp ective groups, when examining all H. pylori-positive patients versus H. pyl ori-negative posttreatment patients, there was a significant reduction (P < 0.05) in all four symptoms of functional dyspepsia measured. In conclusion , we suggest that patients treated with H. pylori-eradicating therapeutic r egimens have an improvement in functional dyspepsia symptoms. We shall pref er the dual therapy as compared to the triple therapy. We believe that erad icating treatment to eradicate H. pylori in the elderly patients with H. py lori-related functional dyspepsia will reduce health care costs by reducing the number of subsequent visits.