- Patients with concurrent critical illness, a history of previous upper gastrointestinal surgery, contraindication to any of the study medications, recent frequent intake of NSAIDs, anticoagulants or steroids, an allergy to the study medications, and those that were pregnant or breast-feeding women were excluded from the study. Other exclusion criteria include recent use of antimicrobials and any condition probably associated with poor compliance such as drug abusers or alcoholics.