Background: Peptic ulcer bleeding (PUB) is the main cause of non-variceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB). Endoscopic treatment and acid suppression with proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) are most important in the management of PUB and these treatments have reduced mortality. However, elderly patients sometimes have a poor prognostic outcome due to severe comorbidities.Methods: A retrospective study was performed on 504 cases with acute non-variceal UGIB who were examined in our hospital, in order to reveal the risk factor of a poor outcome in elderly patients.Results: Two hundred and thirty-four cases needed hemostasis; 11 cases had unsuccessful endoscopic treatments; 31 cases had re-bleeding after endoscopic hemostasis. Forty-three cases died within 30 days after the initial urgent endoscopy, but only seven cases died from bleeding. Elderly patients aged over 65 years had more severe comorbidities, and were prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antiplatelet agents and/or anticoagulation agents, more frequently, compared with non-elderly patients. The significant risk factor of needing hemostatic therapy was the taking of two or more NSAIDs, antiplatelet agents and/or anticoagulation agents. The most important risk of a poor outcome in elderly patients was various kinds of severe comorbidities. And so, it is important to predict such an outcome in these cases. AIMS65 is a simple and relatively useful scoring system that predicts the risk of a poor outcome in UGIB. High-score patients via AIMS65 were associated with a high mortality rate because of death from comorbidities.
Conclusions:The elderly patients in whom were prescribed two or more NSAIDs, antiplatelet agents and/or anticoagulation agents, should have UGIB prevented using a PPI. The most significant risk of a poor outcome in elderly patients was severe comorbidities. We recommend that elderly patients with UGIB should be estimated as having a poor outcome as soon as possible via the risk scoring system AIMS65.
Endoscopic resection of early esophageal cancer has a high therapeutic effect while being minimally invasive. Especially, the establishment of the endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) procedure has made it possible to resect large lesions in an en-bloc manner. As a result, accurate pathology evaluation became possible, and the risk of local recurrence was extremely low. On the other hand, esophageal strictures after endoscopic treatment of an extensive circumferential lesion are a potential problem. Previously, for the prevention and treatment of esophageal strictures, patients had to undergo painful endoscopic balloon dilation (EBD) many times. It is, however, associated with complications (perforation, bleeding, etc.). For this, oral intake and/or a local injection of steroids were given and EBD sessions were less frequently or even unnecessarily performed. Furthermore, oral mucosa epithelial cell sheet transplantation and biodegradable stents are applied for controlling post-ESD stricture. Nevertheless, EBD was still the treatment option for refractory cases of stenosis. Recently, endoscopic radial incision and cutting methods have been applied to esophageal post-procedural strictures and even for anastomotic strictures following surgery. Thus, it is now becoming possible to treat circumferential lesions with ESD and to control the resultant stenosis.
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