[Prevention and therapy of gastroduodenal stress hemorrhage in intensive care patients using the histamine H2-receptor antagonist cimetidine].

In our intensive care unit we were able to prevent almost all bleedings from stress ulcerations in patients with insufficiency of various organs by administering the H2-receptor blocker, cimetidine, in doses of 200 mg eight times per day. However, stres ulcer bleedings occurred in 14% of those patients also suffering from a sepsis. At lower doses of cimetidine, the rate of bleeding was comparable to that encountered in patients treated with antacids, i.e. 12.5% patients with multiple organ insufficiency and 42.7% with sepsis. Cimetidine did not show any therapeutic effect in case of bleeding which led to a significant fall in hemoglobin concentration.