Is successful triage of patients with upper-gastrointestinal bleeding possible without endoscopy?
Advances in pharmacological and endoscopic therapy have improved outcomes for patients with uppergastrointestinal bleeding, but these gains have been counterbalanced by the increasing age of such patients and the high frequency of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug use in this population. As a result, the hospital mortality from upper-gastrointestinal bleeding has remained fairly static at 5—12% 1 , 2 Since the main cost of treating patients with upper-gastrointestinal bleeding is related to costs …
