The treatment of duodenal and gastric ulcer with ranitidine--a controlled, multicentre clinical trial.

One hundred and seventy seven duodenal ulcer and eighty-one gastric ulcer patients were treated with either ranitidine or placebo in a prospective double-blind study. Groups treated with active drug and placebo were comparable and ulcer healing was assessed by weekly endoscopic examinations. Ranitidine was shown to accelerate the rate of spontaneous ulcer healing in both duodenal and gastric ulcer. This acceleration is significant after one week of treatment in duodenal ulcer and from three weeks onwards in gastric ulcer. The ulcer healing rate after three weeks treatment with ranitidine was 85.5% in duodenal ulcer, and 72.5% in gastric ulcer which was significantly higher than in the placebo group where it was 51.7% and 41.5% respectively (P less than 0.005 and P less than 0.01). Treatment with ranitidine for a maximum of six weeks healed 97.1% of duodenal ulcer patients (172 out of 177) and 96.5% of gastric ulcer patients (77 out of 81). Out of total of 258 patients only 9 failed to heal. No adverse events were seen with ranitidine and it would appear free of the side effects that have been seen with cimetidine. In addition there were no significant changes in blood haematology or clinical chemistry parameters. Ranitidine is also given in a more convenient regimen, 150 mg daily as compared to 200 mg three times daily and 400 mg nocte with cimetidine.