Control of Massive Upper Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage

Abstract

IN patients who come to the emergency units of urban general hospitals in this country with active, unremitting hemorrhage originating above the ligament of Treitz and representing loss of at least 1/3 of the blood volume, the sources are about equally distributed among peptic ulceration, ruptured esophageal varices and gastritis. All these patients have hypovolemia and bloody feces; a good many vomit blood, and of those who do not, a majority have blood detectable in the aspirate from a nasogastric tube.Unusual CausesSo overwhelmingly is bleeding caused by ulceration, varices and gastritis that a moment of suspended judgment should . . .