Esophagus to Small Intestine

Gut. 2023;72:1054−72

Burgos-Santamaría D, Nyssen OP, Gasbarrini A, Vaira D, Pérez-Aisa Á, Rodrigo L, Pellicano R, Keco-Huerga A, Pabón-Carrasco M, Cas-tro-Fernandez M, Boltin D, Barrio J, Phull P, Kupcinskas J, Jonaitis L, Ortiz-Polo I, Tepes B, Lucendo AJ, Huguet JM, Areia M, Brglez Jurecic N, Den-kovski M, Bujanda L, Ramos-San Román J, Cuadrado-Lavín A, Gomez-Camarero J, Jiménez Moreno MA, Lanas A, Martinez-Dominguez SJ, Alfaro E, Marcos-Pinto R, Milivojevic V, Rokkas T, Leja M, Smith S, Tonkić A, Buzás GM, Doulberis M, Venerito M, Lerang F, Bordin DS, Lamy V, Capelle LG, Marlicz W, Dobru D, Gridnyev O, Puig I, Mégraud F, O’Morain C, Gisbert JP; Hp-EuReg Investigators

Empirical rescue treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection in third and subsequent lines: 8-year experience in 2144 patients from the European Registry on H. pylori management (Hp-EuReg)


Objective: To evaluate the use, effectiveness and safety of Helicobacter pylori empirical rescue therapy in third and subsequent treatment lines in Europe.
Design: International, prospective, non-interventional registry of the clinical practice of European gastroenterologists. Data were collected and quality reviewed until October 2021 at Asociación Española de Gastroenterología-Research Electronic Data Capture. All cases with 3 or more empirical eradication attempts were assessed for effectiveness by modified intention-to-treat and per-protocol analysis.
Results: Overall, 2144 treatments were included: 1519, 439, 145 and 41 cases from third, fourth, fifth and sixth treatment lines, respectively. 60 different therapies were used; the 15 most frequently prescribed encompassed > 90% of cases. Overall effectiveness remained < 90% in all thera-pies. Optimized treatments achieved a higher eradication rate than non-optimized (78% vs. 67%, p < 0.0001). From 2017 to 2021, only 44% of treatments other than 10-day single-capsule therapy used high proton-pump inhibitor doses and lasted ≥ 14 days. Quadruple therapy containing metronidazole, tetracycline and bismuth achieved optimal eradication rates only when prescribed as third-line treatment, either as 10-day sin-gle-capsule therapy (87%) or as 14-day traditional therapy with tetracycline hydrochloride (95%). Triple amoxicillin-levofloxacin therapy achieved 90% effectiveness in Eastern Europe only or when optimized. The overall incidence of adverse events was 31%.

Conclusion: Empirical rescue treatment in third and subsequent lines achieved suboptimal effectiveness in most European regions. Only quadru-ple bismuth-metronidazole-tetracycline (10-day single-capsule or 14-day traditional scheme) and triple amoxicillin-levofloxacin therapies reached acceptable outcomes in some settings. Compliance with empirical therapy optimization principles is still poor 5 years after clinical practice guide-lines update.

Dr. D. Burgos-Santamaría, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain,
E-Mail: die-goburgossantamaria@gmail.com

DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2022-328232

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