Sources of Upper Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage in Cirrhotic Patients with Esophageal Varices

Abstract

WHEN the patient who is hospitalized because of massive hemorrhage from the upper gastrointestinal tract is found to have the clinical signs of portal cirrhosis, the diagnosis of bleeding esophageal varices must often be assumed. Personal errors based on this assumption, particularly when emergency therapy was recommended, led to a routine study to discover how often patients with proved cirrhosis have other lesions of the upper gastrointestinal tract that may be responsible for hemorrhage.Material and MethodsA hundred and fifty patients with cirrhosis were studied. There were 30 women, 6 Negroes, 4 Puerto Ricans and 1 Japanese in the . . .