A Prospective Review of Cimetidine use

Abstract

A prospective-drug-use analysis was conducted on the first 60 patients receiving cimetidine in a general hospital. Only 18 percent had FDA-approved cimetidine indications, although another 62 percent received the drug for reasons supported by the medical literature. Other than a few cases of use for inappropriate reasons, the major limitation was that almost all patients received intensive antacid therapy along with cimetidine before being given an adequate trial with either drug alone. Thus, an assessment of cimetidine's efficacy was impossible.