[Pathophysiology of massive gastrointestinal hemorrhages].
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The gastrointestinal (GI) manifestations of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in children are related to opportunistic infections like cytomegalovirus (CMV). CMV disease of the GI tract is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients: it typically produces mucosal ulcerations that can result in pain, bleeding, diarrhea, and GI perforation, often around the cecum. Preoperative diagnosis may be difficult, plain films and barium enema are often non-specific, and endoscopic evaluation is impossible when there is massive bleeding. The patient usually needs surgery to establish the correct diagnosis and initiate appropriate treatment. The use of gancyclovir for CMV disease in the postoperative period has improved the prognosis.
Problems in emergency endoscopy for upper gastrointestinal bleeding may arise due to blood and food debris preventing proper endoscopic vision and orientation. We present here a new big channel endoscope with a 6 mm suction and drainage channel that achieved complete evacuation of stomach contents in 122 of 123 patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding, in whom complete gastric cleaning and identification of the bleeding source had proved impossible using standard endoscopes. Gastric emptying using the big-channel endoscope was possible within five minutes in all successful cases. Optimal conditions for therapeutic procedures were therefore provided. The size of the instrumentation channel may open up new indications also for non-emergency endoscopic diagnosis and treatment.
BACKGROUND: Infections are a frequent complication in cirrhotics, and gastrointestinal bleeding may increase the infection rate. Nonabsorbable antibiotics or quinolone have been employed to decrease the incidence of infection. Since most of these studies were performed in western countries, it is still unclear whether this holds true in our Taiwan cirrhotic patients. Thus we conducted this study using a different formula of antibiotics to evaluate the efficacy of reducing infection rates in cirrhotics with upper gastrointestinal bleeding. METHODS: From July 1999 to August 2000, all cirrhotic in-patients presenting with upper gastrointestinal bleeding but without infection were enrolled. The patients should not have received antibiotics within 2 weeks before admission and should have expected life expectance more than 7 days. Eligible patients who had received endoscopy within 12 hours of hospitalization were randomly allocated into 2 groups. Group A received intravenous cefazolin 1 gm every 8 hours started before endoscopy. After 3 days of prophylactic parenteral antibiotics, antibiotics were shifted to oral cephalexin of 500 mg every 6 hours for 4 days. Group B served as control subjects. All patients received chest X-ray, blood and urine cultures, and ascites culture and sputum culture if ascites and sputum were found. Patients were excluded when initial blood, urine or ascites culture was positive for bacterial growth. RESULTS: Ninety-seven patients were included. Group A was comprised of 47 patients and Group B comprised of 50 patients. There was no significant difference in age, sex, Child-Pugh's score or initial hemoglobin between the 2 groups. Proved infection developed in 6 patients of Group B. By contrast, no proved infection was found in Group A. Three organisms belonged to gram-negative bacilli and 3 organisms were gram-positive cocci. The incidence of proved infection during hospitalization was 0% in Group A and 12.0% in Group B (p = 0.027). If possible infection cases (patient's body temperature more than 38 degrees C for more than 2 days) were included, the infection rate was 6.4% in Group A and 26% in Group B (p = 0.013). Infection-related mortality occurred in 2 patients in Group B, but none in Group A. CONCLUSIONS: Our prophylactic antibiotic treatment proved safe and effective in reducing the infection rate in cirrhotics with upper gastrointestinal bleeding.