Symptomatic recurrence of healed duodenal and prepyloric ulcers after treatment with ranitidine or high-dose antacid. A 1-year follow-up study.

Eighty-seven patients with duodenal (n = 49) or prepyloric (n = 38) ulcers healed with ranitidine (n = 44) or a high-dose liquid antacid (n = 43) completed a 1-year double-blind comparative study of symptomatic relapse without treatment. Both duodenal ulcers and prepyloric ulcers tended to remain true to their type of recurrence. Age, sex, history of ulcer disease, duration of initial treatment, and smoking habits were all without influence on the relapse rates. The subgroup of patients with a duodenal ulcer who had healed on either treatment regimen had a symptomatic relapse significantly more frequently than those with prepyloric ulcer (64% +/- 13 versus 34% +/- 15; p less than 0.025), but the estimated probabilities of relapse were unaffected (p greater than 0.05) by the initial type of medication (ranitidine group, 56% +/- 15; antacid group, 51% +/- 15). Thus the present study could not confirm the hypothesis that patients treated with H2-receptor antagonists tend to relapse earlier than those treated with antacids during the following year without treatment.