pubmed:abstractText |
Three-hundred and ninety-five cases of massive upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage were treated in the Surgical and Anaesthesiological Departments of the University Hospital in Linköping over a 5-year period. The mortality was 13%, or 10% when oesophageal varicosities are excluded. Results of a consistent policy concerning surveillance, diagnostic measures, and different forms of therapy are described. From the surgeon's point of view, emphasis is laid on the importance of endoscopy as a means of decreasing the number of exploratory gastroduodenotomies and increasing the proportion of patients in whom surgery is directed against a known source of bleeding. This leads to an enhancement of surgical expediency.
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