Antibiotic therapy has a much greater effect on lowering the overall cost of peptic ulcer disease.
Studies indicate that curing an ulcer with antibiotics takes less time and costs less than one-tenth the amount of treating ulcer symptoms over a lifetime. Maintenance therapy with acid- reducing medications costs approximately $11,000 and requires 187 days of treatment over 15 years. Vagotomy, a more extreme treatment, is also quite costly at $17,000 and requires 307 days of treatment over a 15- year period. Conversely, antibiotic therapy takes 17 days and costs less than $1,000 over the same period of time. 3
