WEDNESDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- In critically ill patients requiring stress ulcer prophylaxis, esomeprazole may be a significantly more effective treatment than ranitidine, according to research presented this month at the Society of Critical Care Medicine's 37th Critical Care Congress in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Christian Madl, M.D., of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and colleagues randomly assigned 70 mechanically ventilated patients with a gastric pH of less than 4 to receive either intravenous ranitidine (50 mg every eight hours) or intravenous esomeprazole (40 mg once daily and 10 mL saline twice daily).
After three days, the researchers found that the esomeprazole group had a significantly higher median gastric pH than the ranitidine group (6.0 versus 4.8) and a higher percentage of time with a pH greater than 4 (95 percent versus 63 percent). They also found that there were no group differences in the incidence of gastrointestinal bleeding and ventilator-associated pneumonia.
"Esomeprazole is more effective in increasing the median gastric
pH and the percentage of time with a pH [greater than] 4 than ranitidine," the authors conclude.
Abstract #43
