Helicobacter pylori Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing-Guided Salvage Therapy in the USA: A Real Life Experience

The current practice guidelines recommend that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) be considered after patients failed the second course of H. pylori eradication therapy.

Here we report the real life experience of following this recommendation in the USA.

We established an in-house H. pylori culture protocol for AST and identified retrospectively patients who previously failed ≥ 2 courses of anti-H. pylori therapy and underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy with AST at University of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. We determined the rate of H. pylori antibiotic resistance, the success rates of AST-guided tailored therapy, and the risk factors associated with treatment failure.

Forty-seven patients were identified and 34 (72.3%) had successful cultures and AST. The most common antibiotic resistance was to metronidazole (79.4%), followed by clarithromycin (70.6%) and ciprofloxacin (42.9%). None of the patients were resistant to amoxicillin or tetracycline. The overall success rate of AST-guided tailored therapy was low (44.4%, 12/27). In patients infected with metronidazole-resistant H. pylori, bismuth quadruple therapy appears to be superior compared to non-bismuth quadruple therapy (6/8 or 75.0% vs. 3/14 or 21.4%, P = 0.03). High body mass index was significantly associated with tailored therapy failure (OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.00-1.54, P = 0.049).

The success rate of AST-guided salvage therapy in the USA is low particularly in those with high BMI. Bismuth-based therapy appears to be better than non-bismuth-based regimens.