Usefulness of famotidine in functional dyspepsia patient treatment: comparison among prokinetic, acid suppression and antianxiety therapies

Summary Background : The treatment of functional dyspepsia is controversial. Aim : The purpose of this paper is to clarify the initial effect of prokinetic, acid suppression and antianxiety treatment for functional dyspepsia patients. Patients and methods : Sixty‐four functional dyspepsia patients without Helicobacter pylori infection were randomly assigned to 15 mg/day of mosapride, 40 mg/day of famotidine, or 30 mg/day of tandospirone during an 8‐week treatment. Individual functional dyspepsia symptoms were evaluated with 4 cm visual analogue scale before and at 2, 4 and 8 weeks after treatment. Results : Among 64 enrolled patients, 62 completed the study. Within 2 weeks, visual analogue scale score in the mosapride‐treated group decreased from 2.29 ±0.14 to 1.57 ± 0.20; in the famotidine from 2.04 ± 0.16 to 1.09 ± 0.12 (mean ± S.E.). Therefore, there were significant improvements of functional dyspepsia symptoms in mosapride‐ and famotidine‐treated patients ( P  <0.01). Furthermore, famotidine was significantly more effective than mosapride ( P  < 0.05). On the contrary, visual analogue scale score in the tandospirone therapy was 2.23 ± 0.20 and 2.13 ± 0.22 before and at 2 weeks, respectively, without any significant improvement. Conclusions : A treatment regimen of famotidine at 40 mg/day had a significant favourable effect on the clinical outcome in functional dyspepsia patients.