Acute UGIB is a serious medical problem in cirrhotic patients. In published literature, most reports focus on variceal bleeding while data on acute non-variceal upper GI bleeding in cirrhosis are limited. This has meant that many physicians over the years assume only variceal bleeding in cirrhosis. Moreover, there are very few reports in which the characteristics of variceal and non-variceal bleeding are analyzed together. Despite the fact that variceal bleeding is a life-threatening complication in cirrhosis with consistently high morbidity and mortality, non-variceal bleeding may also decompensate
cirrhotic patients and even may be fatal. Therefore, we conducted this prospective study in our endoscopy center in TUH to assess the magnitude of the problem as well as its different causes among
cirrhotic patients in the region of the middle of Nile Delta. Methods: In the period from March 2013 LDK378 to September 2013, a total of 650 patients underwent emergency upper GI endoscopy for acute UGIB in the endoscopy center in TUH. Out of these patients, 550 (84.6%) patients proved to have cirrhosis, who were the subject of the present study. All patients included in the selleck chemicals llc study were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination, with special emphasis on stigmata of chronic liver disease, and emergency upper gastrointestinal endoscopy after initial assessment and resuscitation in the emergency department searching for the source of bleeding. A lesion was considered the source of bleeding, if there is stigmata of recent hemorrhage or if it’s the only lesion detected in the presence of fresh or altered blood in the upper GI tract. After identification of the bleeding lesion, the appropriate endoscopic hemostatic procedure was done to control bleeding whenever indicated. Endoscopic hemostasis was obtained by injection, thermal and mechanical
methods or combination of these modalities. The outcome of these modalities was not included in the present analysis. Different endoscopic findings were recorded & ratio of non-variceal in relation to the total number of cases was calculated. Results: Our results showed that UGIB in cirrhotic patients was much more common in males and patients from rural Unoprostone areas. Bleeding varices were detected in 75.5% while non-variceal sources of bleeding were detected in 24.5% of the patients. Regarding age, the bleeding variceal group was younger than the bleeding non-variceal group & the difference was statistically significant. Bleeding variceal group was more commonly presented with hemodynamic instability than the bleeding non-variceal group. 22% of the studied cirrhotic patients had negative viral markers while 78% had positive viral markers. 99.1% of patients with positive viral markers were HCV positive, (0.2%) were HBV positive and (0.7%) had mixed viral etiology. Within bleeding variceal patients, bleeding esophageal varices were predominant (90.