Prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in eighty clinical isolates of Helicobacter pylori

We studied the in vitro susceptibility of 80 Helicobacter pylori clinical isolates to several antimicrobials commonly used to treat the infection, using the Epsilometer test (E-test). We also compared E-test and disk diffusion test in determining H. pylori susceptibility to the same antibiotics. We found a high prevalence of H. pylori strains resistant to metronidazole (23.7%), whereas the prevalence of H. pylori strains resistant to clarithromycin was 10%. Also, a significant correlation was found between MICs obtained with the disk diffusion test and E-test for metronidazole and clarithromycin. In conclusion, our study confirms a high prevalence of metronidazole- or clarithromycin-resistant H. pylori strains. Also, our data suggest that the E-test is a single, reliable, and cost-effective method to assess in vitro susceptibility of H. pylori to antimicrobial agents commonly used to eradicate the infection.