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Severe physiological stress (multiorgan injury or failure, mechanical ventilation) is associated with stress-related mucosal disease and gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB). Acid suppression medication is often prescribed to prevent GIB in such patients; however, its use is sometimes expanded to lower-risk hospitalized patients but with unknown frequency and efficacy.
To assess the frequency of nosocomial GIB outside the intensive care unit (ICU) and the use of acid suppression in hospitalized patients, investigators examined records of 78,394 patients admitted for at least 3 days to determine whether they had received acid suppression — defined as either a proton-pump inhibitor or histamine-2-receptor antagonist — or experienced gastrointestina…