Abstract
The ability of clinicians to wage an effective war against many bacterial infections is increasingly being hampered by skyrocketing rates of antibiotic resistance. Indeed, antibiotic resistance is a significant problem for treatment of diseases caused by virtually all known infectious bacteria. The gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori is no exception to this rule. With more than 50% of the world's population infected, H. pylori exacts a tremendous medical burden and represents an interesting paradigm for cancer development; it is the only bacterium that is currently recognized as a carcinogen. It is now firmly established that H. pylori infection is associated with diseases such as gastritis, peptic and duodenal ulceration and two forms of gastric cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. With such a large percentage of the population infected, increasing rates of antibiotic resistance are particularly vexing for a treatment regime that is already fairly complicated; treatment consists of two antibiotics and a proton pump inhibitor. To date, resistance has been found to all primary and secondary lines of antibiotic treatment as well as to drugs used for rescue therapy.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 190-203 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Current Drug Therapy |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2008 Sep |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics(all)
- Pharmacology (medical)