ABSTRACT

To evaluate patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding diagnosis who were referred to our emergency department.

We evaluated patints referred to our emergency department with upper gastrointestinal bleeding between January 2007 to December 2007. Patients were scored by their gender, age, complaints, laboratuary fi ndings, blood types, amount of blood transfusion, hospitalization duration and mortality.

342 patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding diagnosis were observed. 252 of 342 patients were male (73.6%), 90 were female (36.4%) (p<0.05). 152 patients had ARh(+) blood type (44%), 126 0Rh (+) blood type (36.8%), 64 other blood types (p<0.005). 210 342 patients used drugs (nonsteridal antiinfl ammatory, coumadin) before. 30 patient had esophageal varices bleeding (8.7%), 24 patients had chronic renal failure, 36 patient had cancer background. The application complaint of 144 (42.1%) patient was melena, 42 (12.3%) hematemesis, 156 (45.6%) both melena and hematemesis. Patients’ mean hemoglobin level was 7.2 gr/dl, hematocrit was 21.8%. the mean number of erythrocyte suspension transfused was 3.2 units.14 of 342 patient had upper gastrointestinal bleeding previously. The mean hospitalization period was 4.5 days. 13 of patients died (3.5%).

Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is the most important early diagnosis, treatment and blood transfusion condition in Emergency Department.

Keywords: Gastrointestinal bleeding, Nonsteroidal antiinfl ammatory drugs, blood transfusion