Background/aims: This study was performed to compare the prevalence rates of primary antibiotic resistance in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) isolates among different regions of Korea.
Methods: H. pylori were isolated from gastric mucosal biopsy specimens of 99 Koreans who lived in Gyeonggi (n=40), Kangwon province (n=40) and Busan (n=19) from April to August in 2008. All the patients had no history of H. pylori eradication therapy. The susceptibilities of the H. pylori isolates to amoxicillin, clarithromycin, metronidazole, tetracycline, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, and moxifloxacin were tested according to the agar dilution method.
Results: There was a difference in resistance to clarithromycin in three institutes located among Gyeonggi (32.5%), Kangwon province (12.5%) and Busan (42.1%) by One way ANOVA test (p=0.027) and nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test (p=0.027). However, by post-hoc analysis, there was no statistically significant difference among three regions. Similarly, the other 7 antibiotics (amoxicillin, metronidazole, tetracycline, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin) did not show any significant difference.
Conclusions: There was no significant regional difference of the primary antibiotic resistance of H. pylori. However, the included patient number might not be enough for this conclusion demanding further evaluations.