Efficacy of omeprazole, famotidine, mosapride and teprenone in patients with upper gastrointestinal symptoms: an omeprazole-controlled randomized study (J-FOCUS) BMC Gastroenterology, 05/02/2012

Sakurai K et al. – The favorable efficacy and safety profiles of omeprazole in relieving uninvestigated upper gastrointestinal symptoms support its use as first–line treatment in this patient group in Japan. Patients who show no improvement in symptoms despite PPI use, and those with alarm symptoms (such as vomiting, GI bleeding or acute weight loss) should receive further investigation, including prompt referral for endoscopy.

• This was a randomized, open-label, parallel-group multicenter study.
• Helicobacter pylorinegative, endoscopically uninvestigated patients [greater than or equal to] 20 years of age with upper gastrointestinal symptoms of at least moderate severity (Global Overall Symptom score [GOS] [greater than or equal to] 4 on a 7- point Likert scale) were randomized to treatment with omeprazole (10 mg once daily), famotidine (10 mg twice daily), mosapride (5 mg three times daily) or teprenone (50 mg three times daily).
• The primary endpoint was sufficient relief of upper gastrointestinal symptoms after 4 weeks of treatment (GOS [less than or equal to] 2).

• Of 471 randomized patients, 454 were included in the full analysis set.
• After 4 weeks of treatment, sufficient symptom relief was achieved by 66.9% of patients in the omeprazole group, compared with 41.0%, 36.3% and 32.3% in the famotidine, mosapride and teprenone groups, respectively (all, p < 0.001 vs omeprazole).
• There were no treatment-related adverse events.