Furazolidone is effective to
treat Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in areas with elevated resistance
rate to clarithromycin and in cases with intestinal metaplasia.
The findings of a recent study depicted that in areas with elevated resistance rate to clarithromycin, furazolidone could be a promising candidate in the H. pylori elimination regimen, and in cases with intestinal metaplasia, furazolidone could be even more efficient and is a better choice compared to clarithromycin.
Pezhman Alavinejad et al. performed this randomized multicentric clinical trial to determine the efficacy of furazolidone versus clarithromycin in quadruple therapy for eliminating H. pylori infection. In total, 386 H. pylori-infected participants (average age 44.2 years) were randomly allocated to receive either clarithromycin or furazolidone based quadruple regimen. For all the recruited individuals, the pantoprazole was continued for four more weeks and after one to two weeks of off therapy, a urea breath test was carried to determine elimination of H. pylori.
As found, 80.9% of clarithromycin-recipients and 82.1% of furazolidone-recipients attained H. pylori elimination. During the trial, there was not any major complication but 3.1% of participants in each group reported minor side effects including headache, bitter taste, gastrointestinal upset, and vertigo.
In the subgroup analysis, the eradication rate of clarithromycin among patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, and intestinal metaplasia are shown below:
No vital difference in success rate
between clarithromycin and furazolidone was noted. But, in cases with
intestinal metaplasia, the positive results with furazolidone was more
compared to clarithromycin (85.7% vs.55.6%). Thus, furazolidone appears to yield satisfactory outcomes in H.
pylori patients.
Afro-Egyptian Journal of Infectious and Endemic Diseases
Afro-Egyptian Journal of Infectious and Endemic Diseases
Pezhman Alavinejad et al.
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