Background/aims: Among endoscopic therapies, injection methods, thermal coagulation and mechanical devices are the major therapeutic modalities for upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Argon plasma coagulation (APC), non-contact electrocoagulation, is a procedure which involves thermal coagulation of tissue. In this study, our aim was to clarify the factors associated with APC treatment failure in patients with non-variceal gastrointestinal bleeding.
Methods: We followed up 58 non-variceal upper GI bleeding patients who received endoscopic treatment in our emergency department with APC to control bleeding from November 2006 to March 2008. Patients who received APC hemostasis were followed up to check for evidence of rebleeding by clinical symptoms and signs or drops of hemoglobulin during admission or after discharge. Rebleeding was defined as bleeding from the same lesions detected by repeat endoscopy.
Results: There were no significant differences between non-rebleeding and rebleeding patients in gender, age, presentation, initial systolic blood pressure, diastolic pressure, heart rate, hemoglobulin (pre-endoscopic and post-endoscopic treatment), BUN, creatinin or albumin. Patients with rebleeding had a lower platelet count than those withoutrebleeding(253.78 +/- 90.80 vs. 135.25 +/- 69.06, p = 0.020). In addition, patients with rebleeding had more comorbid disease (24/54 (44.4%) vs. 4/4 (100%), cirrhosis (3/54 (5.6%) vs. 3/4(75%), p = 0.002) and shock (4/54 (7.4%) and 2/4(50%) than those without rebleeding. There were no significant differences between non-rebleeding and rebleeding patients in ulcer size, location of ulcer, Forrest classification, blood transfusion, mean length of hospital stay, surgery or mortality.
Conclusions: APC is an effective endoscopic therapy for non-variceal gastrointestinal bleeding. The presence of shock, low platelet count and cirrhosis may be associated with treatment failure of APC in non-variceal bleeding.