Long‐term therapy with pantoprazole in patients with peptic ulceration resistant to extended high‐dose ranitidine treatment.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Patients (106) with peptic ulceration of the oesophagus, stomach and duodenum, unresponsive to 3 or more months of high-dose treatment with ranitidine, were initially given pantoprazole (40-80 mg, p.o.) daily. In 96.7% of the patients ulcers healed within 2 to 8 weeks, and in 2.3% of patients the ulcers healed within 12 weeks. In just one patient with severe oesophagitis, the lesion took more than 6 months to heal. After ulcer healing, patients (98 to date) were treated with pantoprazole (40 mg/day) as long-term maintenance therapy. Eighty-eight of the 98 patients have been taking pantoprazole for 6 months to 3 years. During maintenance therapy, peptic disease was kept in remission in most patients with 40 mg pantoprazole. Twelve patients with oesophagitis and two patients with gastric ulcers needed higher doses (80-120 mg) to control the disease. One female patient developed peripheral oedema which disappeared quickly after stopping treatment. No further drug-related adverse effects were observed. Seven patients withdrew from the study and two patients died. all for non-drug-related reasons. Routine laboratory tests remained without significant changes in all patients. Mean (+/- S.E.M.) serum gastrin levels were already elevated during the initial high-dose ranitidine treatment (1 28 +/- 23 pg/ml). Within one year of the start of the pantoprazole treatment, serum gastrin levels rose to 3 times normal values (189 +/- 32 pg/ml). Thereafter, no further increases in serum gastrin were observed for up to 2.5 years. Enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cell density increased very slightly from 0.19% to 0.24% within one year. It is concluded that pantoprazole (40-80 mg/day) is highly effective in healing ranitidine-resistant peptic ulceration and that long-term maintenance therapy with pantoprazole (40-120 mg/day) is well tolerated.