DEFINITION



Bleeding from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is an important and common clinical problem. Blood loss may be massive and acute or occult and chronic from a large variety of pathological lesions. A few common lesions, however, account for the bulk of GI bleeding episodes. Although in approximately 80 per cent of patients acute GI bleeding stops spontaneously, bleeding may recur, often during hospitalization, or persist to constitute a life-threatening emergency.

The goals of management in the patient with GI hemorrhage, in order of priority, are to (1) correct hypovolemia, (2) arrest hemorrhage by the least invasive means, and (3} prevent recurrent hem­orrhage. The latter two goals are more rationally attained by accurate identification of the site and pathological nature of the bleeding lesion. How­ever, prompt and adequate hemodynamic resus­citation of the patient takes priority over all di­agnostic procedures.