Research Article Ten-Day versus 14-Day Levofloxacin-Containing Triple Therapy

Copyright © 2013 Wei-Chen Tai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Second-line Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication with fluoroquinolone-containing triple therapy is one of the recommended treatment options, but neither 7-day nor 10-day regimens provide>90 % success rates. The current retrospective study aimed to clarify the effects of 10-day and 14-day levofloxacin-containing triple therapies for second-lineH. pylori eradication in a Taiwanese cohort and to evaluate the potential clinical factors influencing eradication. A total of 200 patients who failedH. pylori eradication using the standard triple therapy were prescribed with either a 10-day (EAL-10) or a 14-day (EAL-14) levofloxacin-containing triple therapy group (levofloxacin 500mg once daily, amoxicillin 1 g twice daily, and esomeprazole 40mg twice daily). Follow-up studies to assess treatment response were carried out 8 weeks later. Eradication rates attained by EAL-10 and EAL-14 were 75.6%; 95% CI = 63.9–85.3 % and 92.5%; 95 % CI = 84.5–98.1%