Abstract

In a retrospective study of 322 patients with upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (UGH) admitted to our hospital in the past 6 years, the overall mortality was 12.11%.(11.7% for the medical, 14.5% for the surgical therapy). While the most common cause of UGH was duodenal ulcers (49.3 %), the highest mortality rates were observed in patients with bleeding esophageal varices (53.8 %).The most significant factors effecting the mortality rates in UGH patients with peptic ulcer, erosive gastritis and undiagnosed bleeding sites were: Age over 60, admission hematocrit value less than 27%, receiving more than 5 units of blood and the presence of concomitant diseases (p<0.05). The same correlation was not observed in patients with a diagnostic accuracy rate of 93.4% in our series, is seemed to be a very valuable and a safe procedure which must be applied to all UGH cases.