Twenty-four-hour intragastric acidity following early evening or bedtime administration of roxatidine in duodenal ulcer patients.

AIM: To assess the usefulness of early evening administration of roxatidine 150 mg as an alternative to the traditional bedtime regimen. METHODS: Twenty-four patients with healed duodenal ulcer were dosed according to a balanced incomplete-block design, with two of the following regimens: placebo, roxatidine 150 mg at 07.30 h (early evening) or roxatidine 150 mg at 22.00 h (bedtime). Twenty-four-hour intragastric pH-metry was started at 18.00 h on the first day of dosing. Median pH was determined for the 24-h period, and for the following time intervals: 20.00-00.00 h, 00.00-08.00 h and 08.00-18.00 h. Percentage time in the 24-h period with pH greater than 4.0 was also calculated. RESULTS: The two roxatidine regimens proved significantly superior to the placebo, decreasing 24-h acidity for all the time intervals, except the 20.00-00.00 h period, when mean intragastric pH with the early evening regimen (4.5 +/- 1.1) proved significantly higher than after placebo (2.2 +/- 1.0) or when roxatidine was taken at bedtime (2.4 +/- 1.1). CONCLUSION: Early evening administration of roxatidine may afford satisfactory control of 24-h acidity, offering a useful alternative to conventional bedtime administration.

Double-blind, randomized trial of roxatidine 150 mg in the early evening versus bedtime administration in the short-term treatment of duodenal ulcer.

AIM: To compare the efficacy and tolerability of early evening (19.00-21.00 hours) vs. bedtime (22.00-00.00 hours) oral administration of roxatidine 150 mg in the short-term treatment of active duodenal ulcer. METHODS: The trial was randomized, double-blind and double-dummy, with parallel groups. A total of 276 patients were recruited and randomly assigned either to roxatidine in the early evening (n = 139) or roxatidine at bedtime (n = 137). RESULTS: After 4 weeks, 78% of patients receiving roxatidine in the early evening and 74% of those treated at bedtime had achieved complete healing, as determined by per-protocol analysis. With intention-to-treat analysis the healing rates were 70.5% and 70.8%, respectively. After 8 weeks the healing rates in the early evening and bedtime treatment groups were 92% and 95% (per-protocol analysis) and 78% and 84% (intention-to-treat analysis). Both treatments proved effective in reducing the frequency and severity of daytime and nocturnal epigastric pain, as well as other ulcer-related symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirmed the healing and analgesic properties of roxatidine in duodenal ulcer disease. Early evening or bedtime dosing with roxatidine 150 mg resulted in similar 4- to 8-week rates of duodenal ulcer healing.

Double-blind randomized, multicenter study comparing aluminium phosphate gel with rantitidine in the short-term treatment of duodenal ulcer.

The efficacy and safety of aluminium phosphate and ranitidine in the short-term treatment of duodenal ulcer were compared in a multicenter, randomized, double-blind study. A total of 304 patients with endoscopically proven active duodenal ulcer were recruited: 153 received 11 g of aluminium phosphate gel five times a day (equivalent to a daily acid buffering capacity of 182 mEq/HC1) and 151 rantitidine 300 mg once daily for 6 weeks. At the end of the treatment period, 74 out of 113 patients (65%) treated with aluminium phosphate and 84 out of 105 patients (80%) treated with rantitidine showed ulcer healing at endoscopy (p = 0.02). Ulcer symptoms, identified as frequency and intensity of daytime and nocturnal epigastric pain, were significantly reduced by both treatments, but rantitidine proved more effective than aluminium phosphate in reducing the frequency of daytime pain (p < 0.01) and its severity (p < 0.01); in contrast, no significant differences were found with regard to frequency and severity of nocturnal pain. The incidence of unwanted effects was significantly higher in the aluminium phosphate group. The main adverse event observed was constipation which, however, was hardly ever severe enough to warrant discontinuing treatment.

DNA sequencing in HydroLink matrices: extension of reading ability to greater than 600 nucleotides.

All the systems for optimizing DNA sequencing published so far have introduced modifications regarding: (i) linearization of band migration via ionic strength gradients or wedge-shaped gels; (ii) automatization of band reading via introduction of fluorescent probes; (iii) direct blotting analysis; (iv) pulsed electric fields and (v) discontinuous buffer systems. In all these systems, DNA sequence reading with an accuracy of ca. 98% rarely exceeds a length of 350 bases. We have chosen, in order to increase the reading ability of a single gel, to manipulate the characteristics of the gel matrix. The Seq-HydroLink gel formation here reported allows optimal reading, from a single gel run, of at least 600 bases. In order to guarantee this reading ability in a single run, the upper and lower ends of the ladder are time-resolved, i.e. the same sample is applied to the gel matrix at three different time intervals. The present system represents an increase of at least 30% in reading ability as compared with any type of polyacrylamide gel formulation so far reported.