Abstract

Objectives: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection caused by antibiotic-resistant strains represents a major public health threat that aggressively promotes gastric cancer progression. Antibiotic resistance evaluation is immensely important to counteract its emergence. Here we merely determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in H. pylori isolates and its correlation with cagA motifs and the homB gene. Methods: The antibiotic resistance pattern was investigated on 128 H. pylori isolated strains utilizing the disk diffusion method and study the correlation between it and the presence of pathogenic genes, cagA EPIYA motifs and homB gene, were accurately detected using the PCR. Results: The resistance rates to four antibiotics were 70.1 for metronidazole, 35.5 for amoxicillin, 7.2 for clarithromycin and 8.2 for tetracycline. Resistance phenotypes were separated into two groups, single resistance (63.2) and multi-resistance (12.5). The prevalence of cagA-ABCC resistant strains and homB(+) resistant strains was significantly higher in cancer (p = 0.04 and p = 0.01, respectively) than those of other diseases. The prevalence of cagA-homB(+) resistance strains was 21.8 and had a significant correlation with PUD. A significant relationship was observed between amoxicillin resistant rate with ABC-homB (p = 0.0006). Conclusion: The Resistance rate to selected antibiotics in Shiraz is higher than years ago. The presence of cagA-homB(+) is associated with antibiotic resistance and also homB can be used as a marker to antibiotic resistance status prediction in H. pylori isolated in this area.