Endoscopic follow-up of patients with gastric ulcer. A prospective study.

Most previous studies have followed gastric ulcer patients by x-ray or endoscopy for less than 2 years. We report an endoscopic follow-up in 110 patients with gastric ulcer for at least 5 years to give data regarding history, radiology, ulcer features, evolution, outcome, recurrences, and diagnostic accuracy. Recurrences had a lesser healing rate than the first lesion; some recurred after more than 5 years. We reached a diagnostic accuracy of 93.6%. We conclude that nonmalignant gastric ulcers treated medically should be followed by endoscopy at 6 and 12 weeks. Healed ulcer should be reinvestigated at least clinically every year up to 5 years.