Gastro‐intestinal haemorrhage from peptic ulcer

Abstract

Over a 3-year-period 72 patients with upper digestive tract haemorrhage due to peptic ulcer were transfused exclusively with isotonic sodium chloride and glucose solutions in equal quantities. The results are compared with 69 patients treated previously in whom conventional blood transfusion regimes had been used. Transfusion therapy was combined with emergency surgery involving vagotomy and draininage, with surgical haemostasis in situ. There were no significant differences between the two groups with regard to anaesthesia, surgery and post-operative managemement. Apart from anemia, there were less early and late complications in the group not receiving blood. The amount of crystalloid solutions administered varied between 7000 ml and 19,000 ml causing a diuresis of 1000 ml to 5300 ml within the first 24 hours. The use of this transfusion regime for haemodynamic re-equilibration in upper gastro-intestinal haemorrhage due to ulcer, in cases in which haemostasis can be obtained with certainty by emergency surgery, allows transfusion of stored blood and colloid solutions to be avoided and emergency surgery to be safely undertaken at the earliest moment. The severe acute anaemia which is caused appears to create no special problems.