Acute treatment of benign gastric ulcer with once-daily bedtime dosing of cimetidine compared with placebo

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Abstract
This multicentre, double-blind study evaluated the efficacy of cimetidine 800 mg nocte compared to placebo for ulcer healing and pain relief in patients with endoscopically confirmed, benign gastric ulcers treated for up to 8 weeks. Cimetidine accelerated ulcer healing throughout the study. More cimetidine-treated patients (35 of 82, 43%) than placebo-treated patients (26 of 79, 33%) had healed ulcers after 4 weeks of therapy. Similarly, after 6 and 8 weeks of treatment, cimetidine continued to have superior healing rates, 76% (59 of 78, P = 0.02) and 91% (69 of 76, P = 0.02) heal rates for cimitidine recipients compared with 58% (42 of 73) and 74% (52 of 70) for placebo. For every week of the study except the second, a greater proportion of cimetidine-treated patients were free of daytime and night-time pain than placebo-treated patients; the differences were statistically significant for night-time pain. Adverse reaction profiles were similar for the cimetidine and placebo groups. In conclusion, cimetidine 800 mg nocte was comparably safe and significantly more effective than placebo in accelerating healing and relieving pain in the treatment of acute, benign gastric ulcer.