TUESDAY, May 27, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Routine testing and treatment for the Helicobacter pylori bacteria in people with suspected peptic ulcers doesn't do much to help their symptoms, but it does increase treatment costs.
So says a study in the May 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study also found most people with doctor-diagnosed peptic ulcer disease(PUD) who are treated in community settings do not have H. pylori infection.
Current guidelines recommend antibiotic treatment for people with HP-positive PUD who have been receiving long-term acid-suppression therapy, the study notes. Those guidelines assume PUD has been diagnosed and that eliminating HP will make further treatment unnecessary and reduce medical costs.
But the prevalence of HP infection and the impact of treating it has not been studied in people receiving acid-suppression therapy for one or more years.
In this study, researchers of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program looked at 650 people who had received acid-therapy suppression for at least a year after being diagnosed with PUD. The study participants were randomly assigned to be tested and treated for HP or to usual care.
The people in the usual care group did not receive routine testing or treatment for HP infection. They did continue to receive medical care and/or medication for PUD.
The study found that only 17 percent of the people had PUD confirmed by X-ray studies or endoscopy. It also found that only 38 percent of the test-and-treat group tested positive for HP.
After a year, people in the test-and-treat group were less likely to report ulcer-like symptoms or use acid-reducing therapy. But 75 percent of them used antacids during the second half of the 12-month follow-up.
Over the course of the year-long study, the people in the test-and-treat group had higher total medical costs related to treatment of PUD symptoms than the people in the usual care group.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about peptic ulcer.
