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In patients with bleeding peptic ulcers, early endoscopy (within 1 day of presentation) has been shown in prospective studies to reduce hospital stays and costs of care. To study early endoscopy in older patients, investigators used data from a random sample of inpatient and outpatient Medicare claims from 2004 to evaluate 2592 adults aged ≥66 (mean age, 78.4±7.7 years) with bleeding ulcers. Early endoscopy was performed in 1854 (71.5%) of patients; delayed endoscopy was performed in the remaining patients.
Patients who underwent early endoscopy had shorter hospital stays than those who received delayed endoscopy (median duration, 4 days vs. 6 days; difference, 1.95 days; 95% CI, 1.29–2.60 days) and less likelihood of undergoing surgery (odd…