Clinical alert
Urgent endoscopy in lower gastrointestinal bleeding
| Table Removed (Available Only in the Full Text) |
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Endoscopy plays an important role in the management of acute gastrointestinal bleeding. Therapeutic endoscopy in upper gastrointestinal bleeding helps to achieve haemostasis, decreases the risk of rebleeding and the need for surgery. Jensen et al have examined whether urgent diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy in lower gastrointestinal bleeding results in similar benefits.1 They report that the endoscopic stigmata of haemorrhage seen in upper gastrointestinal bleeding (that is, active bleeding, non-bleeding visible vessels, or adherent clots) also appear to predict the risk of rebleed in patients who have bled from diverticular disease. Therapeutic intervention with epinephrine injection or bipolar coagulation in patients with these stigmata was beneficial with decreased rebleeding rates, leading to avoidance of surgical intervention.
The study only examined patients with identifiable diverticular
disease and haematochezia. Although diverticular bleeding is the
commonest cause of acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding, the majority
of these (70-80%) stop bleeding spontaneously2 and the
mortality
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
