Jan Tatarkiewicz

Choroba wrzodowa. Część I. Jak pomóc choremu bez recepty?
2006-02-16

Pharmacoterapy of peptic ulcer disease. Part 1. How to help the patient with OTC drugs? This paper describes peptic ulcer disease and principles of its pharmacological treatment with over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. This subset of medications include most of antacids, protective drugs, astringents (with the exception of Bi compounds), some H2 receptor antagonists (H2RA, low doses of ranitidine and famotidine) and low doses of drotaverine. Report is confined to selected, vital characteristics of drugs (e.g. approved indications, guidelines and limitations of treatment, efficacy, adverse effects). Since H2RA and proton pump inhibitors (PPI) can mask signs and symptoms of cancer, potentially leading to misdiagnosis, mistreatment and increased mortality, special attention was directed to this problem.