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Background: The increasing resistance of H pylori to antibiotics has led to failures of eradication treatment. For this reason we intend to modify both the duration of treatment and the regime of antibiotics. Methods: After random allocation, the standard treatment with omeprazole 20 mg orally every 12 hours, amoxicillin 1 g VO every 12 hours and clarithromycin 500 mg orally every 12 hours for 7 days (group 1) was compared with the same antibiotic regime over 10 days (group 2). Patients had either non-ulcer dyspepsia (NUD) or ulcer dyspepsia (UD). Effectiveness of eradication was evaluated with breathe tests. A year later, clinical responses to each therapy were compared for patients with NUD and DU. The tolerance to therapy was also evaluated for each group. Results: 149 patients were randomly assigned to group 1 and 144 patients to group 2. The eradication rate as measured by ITT analysis was 67.8% in group 1 and 74.3% in group 2 (p = 0.24). It was 72.1% and 81. 1% (p = 0.08) respectively for per protocol analysis. The eradication rate was similar for both groups independently of the degree of H pylori infection (p = 0.22). Differences in the degree of infection and the presence of NUD or DU (p = 0.19) were not found. Adverse effects were more frequent in group 2 (27.5% vs. 36.1%), but without statistical relevance (p = 0.4). The eradication rate was similar for patients with NUD (73.8% vs. 81,1%) and DU (64.3% vs. 73%). Follow up examinations one year later showed that the clinical manifestations were not related to the whether or not bacteria had been eradicated (p = 0.7). Nevertheless, the clinical response of patients with DU was better than for those with NUD. Conclusions: Standard therapy for either 7 or 10 days is insufficient for eradication of H pylori independent of the degree of H pylori infection or the type of endoscopic finding (NUD or DU). Both therapies show suboptimal eradication rates and poor clinical responses at one year follow-up in the group with NUD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]