Drug for Ulcers

Dr. Keith S. Grimson, professor of surgery at Duke University, had relieved a lot of peptic ulcers with a combination of tricky operations. But for three years he had been looking for a way to get the same kind of result without surgery. Last week Duke's Grimson announced that he and two associates had succeeded--with a drug called banthine.

Ulcer sufferers seem to have an overactive vagus nerve. When it is working too hard, the nerve causes the stomach to secrete too much acid, contract too energetically and spill its contents too fast--perhaps within an hour. The acid irritates an old ulcer or starts a new one. Cutting the vagus nerve is one surgical device to slow down the contractions and the acid output. Dr. Grimson combined this operation with another which short-circuited much of the ulcer area.

In their research to avoid surgery, Grimson and associates found an answer in banthine, a new synthetic drug which they had been testing on high blood pressure. Banthine, taken by mouth in tablet form four to six times a day, has the same effect as cutting the vagus nerve; it slows down stomach contractions so that food is retained there for as long as six hours, and it reduces the flow of corrosive acid.

The first 26 patients who got the treatment were relieved of pain; X rays showed that their ulcers had healed. Most were able to discard their pappy ulcer diets and between-meal snacks, but they must take banthine regularly; it is a palliative rather than a cure.

Dr. Grimson wants to test banthine in detail for another six months. Then, if it still looks good, he will ask the Food & Drug Administration to release it for general use.

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