[Quality of life in patients with duodenal ulcer].

AIM: To examine influence of duodenal ulcer (DU) on quality of life (QL) and changes in QL after different DU treatments.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

QL in DU was assessed with Russian version of SF-36 questionnaire in 66 DUpatients with Helicobacter pylori (HP) aged 16-80 years (mean age 44.6 +/- 17.3 years).

RESULTS

DU healing was achieved after 2 weeks of therapy with ranitidine (300 mg/day), amoxicilline (2000 mg/day), metronidasole (1000 mg/day), and famotidin (40 mg/day), amoxicilline (2000 mg/day, clarithromycin (1000 mg/day) in 69.2 and 94.9% cases (p = 0.04), after 4 weeks--88.2 and 96.8%, rrespectively (p = 0.52). Hospital stay was 16.1 +/- 2.1 and 22.2 +/- 3.4 (p < 0.05), respectively. Exacerbation of DU leads to deterioration of QL according to all the SF-36 scales. Four weeks of therapy produced a statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvement of QL by all the scales. In failure of HP eradication QL worsened.

CONCLUSION

QL is low in exacerbation of DU associated with HP. Antihelicobacter therapy improves QL of DUpatients. QL investigations help to select most effective therapy.