Treatment with amoxiciliin and omeprazole resulted in encouraging Helicobacter pyloon eradication rates in pilot studies that included medium term foliow up. These results were evaluated in a prospective, randomised and controlled study. Forty patients with active duodenal ulcer disease and H pylon colonisation of the gastric mucosa were randomly assigned to receive either omeprazole (20 mg twice daily) and amoxiciflin suspension (500 mg four times daily) for two weeks (group I) or bismuth subsalicylate (600 mg three times daily), metronidazole (400 mg three times daily), tetracycline (500 mg three times daily), and raniditine (300 mg in the evening) for two weeks (group II). Study medication was followed in both groups by a four week treat-

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the Helicobacter pylori eradication potency of combined amoxicillin-omeprazole treatment in patients with duodenal ulcer disease and to compare the efficacy of two omeprazole and amoxicillin doses concerning H. pylori eradication, ulcer healing, pain relief, and safety. Ninety patients with active H. pylori-positive (culture and/or histology) duodenal ulcer disease were randomly treated with either omeprazole 20 mg twice a day plus amoxicillin 1 g twice a day (group I, N = 30), omeprazole 40 mg twice a day plus amoxicillin 1 g twice a day (group II, N = 30), or omeprazole 40 mg twice a day plus amoxicillin 1 g three times a day (group III, N = 30) over two weeks, followed by ranitidine at bedtime for another four weeks. The overall proportion of H. pylori eradication was 83% and of ulcer healing 92% without statistically significant differences between the study groups. Complete pain relief occurred after a median of one day in all groups. Six patients complained of side effects during the therapy phase, which led to therapy discontinuation in one female patient. In conclusion, omeprazole plus amoxicillin is a highly effective and well-tolerated therapy regimen to eradicate H. pylori in duodenal ulcer disease. In addition, the results suggest that there is no clear dose-response relation between the dosages of omeprazole and amoxicillin used in this study on the one hand and the H. pylori eradication rates on the other.

Granular cells can occur in various odontogenic and non-odontogenic tumours. 5 granular cell lesions, one granular cell ameloblastoma, one so-called granular cell ameloblastic fibroma and three granular cell tumours were examined immunohistochemically for the intermediate filaments cytokeratin, vimentin, desmin, neurofilaments and the neural markers NSE and S-100 protein. The granular cell tumors (granular cell myoblastoma) showed positive staining for vimentin and S-100 protein. Only vimentin could be demonstrated in the granular cells of the so-called granular cell ameloblastic fibroma, whereas the granular cell ameloblastoma showed positive staining only for cytokeratin. A positive reaction with S-100 protein was not found in any of the odontogenic tumours. In our opinion the mesenchymal odontogenic granular cell is a fibroblast, whereas the epithelial granular cell is derived from enamel epithelium. The term "granular cell ameloblastic fibroma" is a misnomer, as a number of these tumours are probably central odontogenic fibromas exhibiting granular cell transformation.

For the first time a promising concept for H. pylori eradication in H. pylori-positive ulcer bleeding is available by using a combined intravenous and oral omeprazole/amoxicillin therapy, which can be started intravenously immediately after an emergency upper GI endoscopy. In addition, these data imply that omeprazole pretreatment may not be wise when H. pylori eradication is attempted.

No abstract