[Therapy of the acute ulcer attack]

Medical treatment of acute ulcers can be optimized by paying attention to risk factors for slow healing and for rapid recurrence. Therapy-resistant ulcers have become virtually unknown with modern drugs, so elective ulcer surgery is nowadays rarely needed for this reason. While drug therapy of acute ulcer hemorrhage is probably of little, if any, benefit for stopping bleeding, endoscopic treatment reduces the risk of continuous or recurrent bleeding, the need for emergency surgery, and mortality of this most common complication.