Can advanced age influence the characteristics of peptic gastric ulcer? Italian Multicenter Study Group for Gastric Ulcer.

Do gastric ulcers in older patients bear the same characteristics as gastric ulcers in younger patients? To seek an answer, a multicenter study group in Italy compared gastric ulcers in a group of 124 patients older than 60 years with those in a group of 162 patients younger than 50 years. The only difference observed was that gastric ulcers in the older group tended to be larger. The rate of healing, in response to famotidine, was the same.