Aim: To evaluate the primary antibiotic resistance in Helicobacter pylori strains isolated from a Chinese Tibetan population. Methods & materials: Gastric biopsies from 400 H. pylori treatment-naive Tibetan patients were collected for H. pylori isolation. Susceptibility to amoxicillin (AML)/clarithromycin (CLR)/levofloxacin (LEV)/metronidazole (MTZ)/tetracycline (TET)/rifampicin (RIF)/furazolidone (FZD) was determined by E-test or a disk diffusion assay. Results: Biopsies from 117 patients were H. pylori culture positive (29.3%). The primary resistance rates to MTZ, CLR, LEV, RIF, AML, TET and FZD were 90.6, 44.4, 28.2, 69.2, 7.7, 0.8 and 0.8%, respectively. Interestingly, 42.7% of the strains had simultaneous resistance to CLR and MTZ. Conclusion: Among Tibetan strains, primary resistance rates were high for CLR/MTZ/LEV, whereas primary resistance rates to AML/TET/FZD were low. The high resistance to RIF is a concerning finding.
Keywords: Helicobacter pylori; Tibetan population; antimicrobial susceptibility testing; empiric therapy; rifampicin.