[Differential diagnosis of peptic ulcer]

Although new pathogenetic findings of peptic ulcers have been detected, there still remain some open questions. Accurate anamnestic evaluation will find out risk factors as cigarette-smoking, stress and therapy with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and will be helpful in differential diagnosis. Endoscopy is the diagnostic means of choice, and enables to easy helicobacter pylori detection. Since some gastric ulcers are actually carcinomas, it is absolutely necessary to obtain multiple biopsies. The Zollinger-Ellison syndrome and symptoms of other rare diseases of the upper intestine are discussed.