Drug cuts ulcer bleeding risk

Doctors treat people with a bleeding peptic ulcer by sticking a tube down their throats and using heat to seal off the bleeding. But the bleeding resumes in 15 to 20 per cent of patients, sometimes with fatal results.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that adding the ulcer drug omeprazole to treatment can reduce the risk of fresh bleeding.

In tests on 240 volunteers, doctors at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong found that only 6.7 per cent of the omeprazole recipients experienced another round of bleeding within 30 days of heat treatment, compared with 22.5 per cent of the people who were given a placebo.

The drug, sold under the brand-names Prilosec and Losec, also affected the death rate, as 4 per cent of the omeprazole patients died compared with 10 per cent in the placebo group. But because of the small number of deaths, the difference was not statistically significant.

Peptic ulcers affected one in eight Americans a decade ago, but new drugs such as omeprazole that reduce stomach acid have made ulcers far less prevalent.

- REUTERS