Furazolidone, Amoxicillin, Omeprazole With or Without Bismuth for Eradication of Helicobacter Pylori in Peptic Ulcer Disease

Furazolidone has been introduced as an effective drug against helicobacter pylori infection in Iran, but intolerable side-effects may limit its use. We compared quadruple and triple furazolidone-based regimens to achieve an economically affordable regimen with acceptable efficacy rate and fewer complications.Matherials & Patients with H.pylori positive peptic ulcer disease were randomly divided into two groups. They were treated with amoxicillin 1gm/BID, furazolidone 200 mg/BID, omeprazole 20mg/BID with and without bismuth sub-citrate 240 mg/BID for two weeks (AFOB & AFO regimens, respectively) H.pylori eradication was confirmed by 13C-urea breath test 12 weeks after the end of the treatment. Eighty six patients were enrolled but 16 ones discontinued their therapy or follow-up. The eradication rates in AFOB & AFO were 85.3% and 61.1% by per-protocol analysis, respectively (P=0.02), and 67.4% & 51.2% by intention–to-treat analysis respectively (P<0.05). The most frequent adverse effects in the two study groups were weakness, nausea, anorexia and dizziness that demonstrated no significant differences.Discussion & In this study, furazolidone-based triple therapy (without bismuth) was not recommended for H.pylori eradication, due to the lower eradication rate and unchanged frequency of adverse effects.