[Cimetidine in the treatment of gastric ulcer]

Fourteen gastric ulcer patients were submitted to treatment with Cimetidine. They were endoscopically controlled before the beginning of treatment and at the third and sixth week. In the first phase of the investigation, cimetidine was given in a dosage of 1.0 g/day. At the end of the 3rd week, those patients who showed a reduction of less than 50% on the size of the ulcer had the cimetidine doses increased to 1.6 g/day. The second phase started with nine patients which healed at the end of the six weeks. These patients were randomly allocated to two groups in a double blind trial involving cimetidine (600 mg/day) or placebo for 12 weeks. At the end of this period, the patients were submitted to an endoscopic control. Two patients in the placebo group had a recurrence of their ulcers. This did not happen to any of the patients taking cimetidine. Two and a half months after stopping their maintenance treatment, two patients of the cimetidine group had a recurrence of their lesions.