• Gastrointestinal bleeding

We have read with great interest the papers of Hearnshaw and colleagues1 ,2 reporting a prospective nationwide survey on acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding carried out in the UK in 2007. We would like to draw the attention to similarities and dissimilarities of this unique study compared with the results of a prospective population-based single-centre study we carried out in 2002–4 in the Treviso area (north-east Italy).3 Both surveys have taken a similar approach including data records on epidemiological and clinical features, variceal and non-variceal bleeding, emergency admissions and inhospital patients.

In table 1 common recorded findings of this English study have …