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Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is a heavy gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a common condition requiring immediate surgical treatment. Bleeding occurs due to the presence of gastric and duodenal ulcers.
What causes upper gastrointestinal bleeding?
The most common cause of gastrointestinal haemorrhage is a stomach or duodenal ulcer, then referred to as a bleeding ulcer.
Other causes in decreasing incidence are:
- haemorrhagic gastritis (caused most often by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs),
- esophageal varices (occurring in the course of portal hypertension, most often in patients with liver cirrhosis),
- Mallory-Weiss syndrome (bleeding from linear ruptures of the gastric mucosa near the gastric cardia, most often occurring in heavy alcoholics during vomiting),
- stomach cancer.
The presence of dusty vomiting and tarry stools suggest that upper gastrointestinal bleeding may have occurred.
Diagnostics of upper gastrointestinal bleeding
The basis of bleeding diagnostics has become emergency endoscopic examination gastrointestinal tract, enabling not only localization of the bleeding site, but also simultaneous effective treatment (e.g. endoscopic obliteration of a bleeding ulcer). Only patients with massive bleeding, recurrent bleeding after endoscopic surgery, or severe bleeding for endoscopic control require surgical treatment on an ad hoc basis, as it is life-threatening.
Bleeding in the upper gastrointestinal tract – treatment
Each patient with gastrointestinal bleeding requires immediate transport to the hospital for the surgical ward. These patients should not be given any, even cold, fluids to drink, especially when vomiting (but you can put an ice bag on the stomach). Observation and further treatment of such a patient should take place in the surgical ward. Currently, most patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding do not require surgery.
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