Proton-pump inhibitor and amoxicillin-based triple therapy containing clarithromycin versus metronidazole for Helicobacter pylori: A meta-analysis

Abstract Background Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is one of the important risk factors of gastric related diseases and antibiotic therapy has become an effective treatment. At present, proton-pump inhibitor and amoxicillin-based triple therapy, including clarithromycin (PAC) and metronidazole (PAM), are two commonly used first-line therapies for H. pylori infection, which has a high incidence and possibly poor prognosis worldwide. Methods A systematic literature review was performed using the databases PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Ovid Medline, Science Direct, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science. Only randomized clinical trials with full texts published were included. Results Eighteen studies involving 3264 patients were included. The pooled risk ratios (RR) between the PAC and PAM groups were comparable in the intention-to-treat (ITT) eradication rates (71.0% versus 75.2%, RR = 0.96, p = 0.38) and per-protocol (PP) eradication rates (79.6% versus 80.1%, RR = 1.02, p = 0.65). PAM is highly effective in clarithromycin-resistant cases (70.4% versus 48.2%, RR = 0.65, p = 0.002) and that PAC showed significant efficacy in metronidazole-resistant cases (87.3% versus 58.6%, RR = 1.43, p = 0.0006). In subgroup analysis, when using low-dose PPI, the PAM group showed greater efficacy than the PAC group. Furthermore, we found that PAM showed higher effectiveness in the studies published in recent years, especially for people over 60 years old (RR = 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71–0.89, p  Conclusion In general, both PAC and PAM regimens were effective and comparable in eradicating H. pylori. However, the PAM regimen showed greater efficacy than the PAC regimen in recent years, especially for people over 60 years old.