Abstract
We studied long-term prognosis of duodenal ulcer (DU) retrospectively. Fifty five (15.9%) out of 345 patients with active DU were endoscopically followed-up for more than 10 years, they were classified into 3 groups; 35 patients (63.6%) with DU alone (D), 10 patients (18.2%) with gastric ulcer (GU) after scarring of DU (Ds+G) and 10 patients (18.2%) with DU plus GU concurrently or alternately (D+G). After 10 years, two patients underwent gastrectomy for GU bleeding and gastric cancer respectively, and 3 patients died of an unrelated disease. The ocurrence of GU was more frequent, though not significantly, in older smokers. DU recurred more often in smoking, younger, male, and hypotensive patients with erosive gastritis, apparent bulb deformity, maintenance therapy and the history of bleeding from ulcer. In all, none of them was a significant factor, while smoking and male had a significant relationship with DU recurrence in the group D. In the group D+G, the recurrence rate of DU was higher than that in the group D. In some, DU did not reccur without any maintenance therapy and, in some, it could not prevent recurrence of DU. Criteria should be established for the indication of maintenance therapy.
