Absence of dyspeptic symptoms as a test for Helicobacter pylori eradication: Table 1

Eradication of Helicobacter pylori changes the course of duodenal ulcer disease and effectively cures it.1 One issue that limits the more widespread use of eradication treatment, however, is whether patients should undergo a test to confirm successful eradication. Many of the tests necessitate endoscopy and are therefore invasive, time consuming, and expensive. The carbon-13 or carbon-14 labelled urea breath test has been suggested as probably the best method of follow up after eradication treatment.2 This test is non-invasive, well tolerated, and easy to perform, but widespread use is limited by availability, expense (in the case of 13C) or problems with radioisotope handling (14C). We have previously shown that eradication of H pylori results in a highly significant reduction of dyspeptic symptoms in patients with duodenal ulcer disease.3 In this study we assessed …