Peptic ulcer disease

Abstract

Despite major advances in medicine, peptic ulceration remains a major problem. More than 10% of the adult population will suffer from a gastric or duodenal ulcer (Lu et al. 2004). Most will suffer symptoms such as pain; many will suffer complications occasionally leading to mortality (Westbrook et al. 2001). Improvements in diagnostic techniques have allowed more precise determination of the underlying etiology. However, some gastric ulcers remain associated with malignancy requiring that these lesions are carefully evaluated and followed up to differentiate benign from malignant.