The significance of chronic hyperglycemia for the reduced efficacy of eradication therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and for Helicobacter pylori survival

Aim: This study aims to determine the significance of chronic hyperglycemia for the reduced efficacy of eradication therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)-associated upper gastrointestinal tract pathology as well as for H. pylori survival. Methods: A prospective randomized study with the participation of 180 patients (87 men and 93 women) with H. pylori-associated upper gastrointestinal pathology was carried out. Ninety of these patients were with T2DM and 90 were without diabetes mellitus (DM). The patients were divided into 4 groups of 45 patients: the group 1 included non-diabetic patients treated with the classical triple eradication scheme; the group 2 included patients with T2DM treated with the classical triple eradication scheme; the group 3 included non-diabetic patients treated with bismuth quadro-therapy; the group 4 included patients with T2DM treated with bismuth quadro-therapy. The presence of H. pylori and evaluation of eradication efficacy was carried out using the Helix breath test. Results: The effectiveness of 1st line anti-Helicobacter therapy was higher (88.2%) in patients without diabetes in comparison with the group of patients with concomitant T2DM (74.7%). The efficacy of classical triple eradication therapy in patients with concomitant T2DM was 69.1%, and quadro-therapy was 80.5%. There was significantly lower effectiveness (P < 0.017) of eradication therapy in patients with T2DM and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level ≥ 7.0% as compared with the group of patients in whom the target (≤ 6.5%) level of HbA1c was achieved. Conclusions: Chronic hyperglycemia has a favorable effect on the viability of H. pylori bacteria in patients with T2DM. A hypothesis explaining the reduced efficacy of eradication therapy in patients with hyperglycemia has been proposed.