Selection of patients for surgery following peptic ulcer haemorrhage

Surgery remains the only widely available and well-proven means of stopping haemorrhage from peptic ulcers and preventing its recurrence but carries an unavoidable morbidity. If surgery is to be used to maximum effect with minimum morbidity, an accurate means of predicting which patients will suffer further haemorrhage is needed. Although over 80 per cent of patients who rebleed have the endoscopic stigmata of haemorrhage, a policy of operation in all patients with stigmata would lead to a very high operation rate and a high proportion of unnecessary operations, as one-half of the patients with stigmata do not rebleed. Clinical data were collected prospectively from 278 cases of peptic ulcer haemorrhage. The data from a randomly selected 75 per cent of the cases were analysed by stepwise logistical regression. Patients who had the endoscopic stigmata of haemorrhage and who had a probability of further haemorrhage, calculated from the regression equation, of more than 0.2 were identified as a high risk group. This definition was validated using the 25 per cent of cases not used in the initial analysis. Eighty-four per cent of patients in the high risk group suffered further haemorrhage and all such patients therefore require early surgery: such a policy would have resulted in an operation rate of 28 per cent. Thirty per cent of the patients who had further haemorrhage were not identified as being at high risk but none of them had a severe rebleed. The regression equation greatly enhanced the value of stigmata in guiding surgical decision making and merits further evaluation.     

The influence of risk factors in recurrent peptic ulcer haemorrhage

Gastrointestinal hemorrhage is one of the most frequent complications that occurs in 15 20% patients with peptic ulcer disease. Recurrent ulcer haemorrhage presents in the first 72 hours after initial bleeding: they are the most im portant cause of death. The aim of our study was to show the possibility of ulcer recurrent haemorrhage combined with risk factors: age 60, high risk lesion (active arterial bleeding, visible blood vessel, adherent coagulum), the size, ulcer base and localization (posterior duodenal wall. lesser curvature or high gastric ulcer), commorbidities ( cardiovascular and liver diseases) and haemodynamic instabilities. The combination of these risk-factor, unproportionally increases the risk: presence of two risk factors gives the possibility of recurrent bleeding of 16.67%, three risk factors 58.82%, four 93.33%, while the presence of five risk factors shows 100% posibility. Probability of death is 8.27 times greater if ulcer haemorrhage occurs.     

消化性溃疡穿孔的诊断和治疗

目的 总结消化性溃疡穿孔的外科诊治经验，以提高对溃疡病穿孔的诊治水平。方法 对1991～2002年间收冶的166例消化性溃疡穿孔患者的临床资料进行回顾性分析。结果166例中，术前确诊152例(91．6％)，误诊14例(8．4％)。行保守治疗20例(12．0％)，无中转手术病例。穿孔修补术28例(16．9％)，胃大部分切除术118例(71.1％)，术后无再穿孔、幽门梗阻、吻合口漏和残端破裂等近期严重并发症及死亡病例。结论 术前X线和B超联合应用可提高溃疡病穿孔的确诊率。胃大部分切除术的近期并发症与单纯穿孔修补术或非手术疗法并发症的发生无显著性差异，但远期疗效优于后两者。     

Surgical treatment in peptic ulcer complicated by acute hemorrhage

Results of the surgical treatment of 168 patients with acute ulcer hemorrhage are analyzed. The main type of operation was gastric resection (87,0%), vagotomy with organ-preserving operations being also used. Total postoperative lethality was 8,3%.     

Perforated peptic ulcer

Peptic ulcer disease has declined significantly since 1950 in industrialized nations. However, the number of patients with perforated and bleeding ulcers has been constant or has declined only slightly, except for older patients, in whom the frequency has increased. In patients with perforated ulcers, operative management is preferable to non-operative treatment. The operative choices are simple closure of the perforation or definitive surgery. Patients who have significant risk factors should undergo simple closure. Closure of the ulcer with parietal cell vagotomy is the author's first choice for definitive operative treatment when this procedure can be performed.