Drug 'prevents ulcer deaths'

Peptic ulcers are sores on the ling of the stomach and intestine

Doctors have found a way to reduce the risk of potentially fatal bleeding following treatment for peptic ulcers.

At present, doctors treat people with a bleeding peptic ulcer by sticking a tube down their throats and using heat to seal off the wound.

However, the bleeding resumes in up to one in five patients - sometimes with fatal results.

Doctors at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong have dramatically cut the risk of fresh bleeding by using a drug called omeprazole.

In tests on 240 volunteers, only 6.7% of patients who received the drug suffered from fresh bleeding within 30 days of treatment.

This compared to 22.5% of people who were given a placebo.

Death rates

The drug also reduced the number of people who died from their symptoms.

Just 4% of the omeprazole patients died compared to 10% in the placebo group.

More research is required to corroborate the findings, as the study was based on too few patients to be statistically significant.

But, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, lead researcher Dr James Lau said omeprazole "substantially reduces the risk of recurrent bleeding".

Peptic ulcers are sores that occur in the oesophagus, stomach or small intestine.

Once they eat far enough into the lining of the tissue they can start to bleed.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr Eric Libby, of the New England Medical Centre in Boston, said omeprazole may work because it reduced the acidity of the stomach for a long time, protecting a clot that is created by the heat treatment.

The researchers used an intravenous form of the drug. Further tests are required to establish whether an oral form would be as effective.

Dr Bob Walt, a consultant gastroenterologist at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, said around 14% of UK patients who suffered from peptic ulcer bleeding died from the condition.

He said endoscopic treatments had helped to reduce mortality rates.

But he added: "Until now there has been no drug that has consistently been shown to alter mortality rates when used in conjunction with endoscopy."

An endoscope is a flexible tube attached to a viewing device to allow doctors to examine internal structures inside the body.