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Distribution of Antibiotic MICs for Helicobacter pylori Strains over a 16-Year Period in Patients from Seoul, South Korea

Department of Microbiology and Institute of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Hanyang University,¹ Department of Internal Medicine and Liver Research Institute, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul,² Department of Biotechnology, Joongbu University, Choongnam, South Korea³

Received 29 December 2003/ Returned for modification 21 March 2004/ Accepted 28 August 2004

Recently, the development of antibiotic resistance emerged as a significant clinical problem in the eradication of Helicobacter pylori. We investigated the MICs of antibiotics for 135 H. pylori isolates from adults in Seoul, South Korea, over the past 16 years. The MICs of amoxicillin, clarithromycin, metronidazole, tetracycline, azithromycin, and ciprofloxacin increased from 1987 to 2003. Rates of primary resistance to clarithromycin increased from 2.8% in 1994 to 13.8% in 2003. The A2144G mutation was frequently observed in the 23S rRNA gene in clarithromycin-resistant isolates. The increase in resistance to clarithromycin seems to result in a decrease in eradication efficacy for H. pylori. These results suggest that the MICs of several antibiotics for H. pylori have increased over the past 16 years in Seoul.

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