Effectiveness and Safety of High-Dose Dual Therapy: Results of the European Registry on the Management of Infection (Hp-EuReg).

BACKGROUND

Randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses, primarily from Asian countries, have reported good effectiveness with high-dose dual therapy (HDDT) including a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) and amoxicillin when prescribed as first-line or rescue treatment. However, combining amoxicillin with PPIs in the 1990s in several European countries yielded suboptimal results.

METHODS

An international, multicenter, prospective non-interventional Registry (Hp-EuReg) aimed to evaluate the decisions and outcomes of management by European gastroenterologists. All infected adult cases treated with HDDT were registered at e-CRF AEG-REDCap platform until June 2021. Sixty patients were prescribed with HDDT (98% compliance), 19 of them received a first-line therapy and 41 a rescue treatment (second- to sixth-line).

RESULTS

Overall HDDT effectiveness was 52% (per-protocol) and 51% (modified intention-to-treat). First-line and rescue treatment lines were equally effective, but the effectiveness was worse when patients had previously received metronidazole, tetracycline, or rifabutin. Adding bismuth to HDDT in rescue treatment did not yield better results. The incidence of adverse events was 30%, diarrhea being the most common (20% of patients); no serious adverse events were reported.

CONCLUSION

Although HDDT is safe and has good compliance, it is not a good option in European first-line or rescue treatment, even when adding bismuth.