Long-term treatment of gastric ulcer with cimetidine

Twenty patients with gastric ulcer received treatment with cimetidine. Patients were studied endoscopically before initiation of treatment and after three and six weeks of treatment. Cimetidine was administered at an initial dose of 1 gm/day. At the end of the third week, patients who had a reduction of less than 50% in the size of their ulcers were given 1.6 gm/day of cimetidine for the next three weeks, while the other patients remained on the initial dosage schedule for three more weeks. The 16 patients whose ulcers healed received either cimetidine or placebo (one tablet after lunch and one at bedtime) for an additional 12-week period in a double-blind, randomized study. At the end of this period, patients underwent endoscopic follow-up examination. One of nine patients given cimetidine and one of seven patients given placebo had recurrence of ulcer at the end of the trial. The four patients whose ulcers did not heal by the end of six weeks of treatment were smokers.