Abstract

After healing of a gastric ulcer, 53 patients were randomly allocated to either 12 months maintenance treatment with ranitidine 150 mg at night or an identical placebo. Fifty patients completed the trial. The patients were interviewed every third month. If symptoms indicated a relapse, endoscopy was done; and if an ulcer was found the maintenance trial was terminated. All remaining patients were endoscoped after one year. The accumulated relapse rate in the ranitidine group (36%) was significantly lower (p less than 0.01) than in the placebo group (76%), as also was the antacid consumption (p less than 0.01). Four of the six ulcers found at the final one year endoscopy were asymptomatic. In all but two of the 26 patients with relapse of symptoms an ulcer was found at endoscopy. The patients that suffered a recurrence had significantly (p less than 0.05) higher maximal acid output than those without ulcer recurrence. The time needed for healing of the relapse ulcers (four or eight weeks) corresponded to that needed for healing of the preinclusion ulcers. It is concluded that ranitidine 150 mg at night significantly reduces the gastric ulcer recurrence rate, and that relapsing ulcers are similar to the initial ones in healing response.