Injury to gastric mucosa due to cortisonoid therapy

Drawing on their own experience and reports in literature the present authors analyze the problem of the incidence and origin of alterations on the gastric mucosa (steroid ulcer) in the course of cortisonoid therapy. Over the period of 5 years, 576 patients were studied, 29 (5.03%) of which were found to have developed a lesion of the gastric mucosa. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis and collagenoses were the most frequent of these. This is followed by an analysis of the mechanism of origin and the peculiarities of this lesion as compared with the picture of the classical ulcer. Apart from medicamentous therapeutic procedures in the treatment of steroid ulcers, local application of a HeNe laser radiation has come to be used recently in the healing of a chronic gastroduodenal ulcer. Despite all the vast experience and more accurate knowledge of the drawbacks cortisonoid therapy brings along, the steroid ulcer still represents a feared and not quite rare complication of glucocorticoid therapy.